Skate Park Plan Inches Forward

“Look at all that space right here!” Jean Jenkins said, gesturing toward an open, grassy area in the middle of Scantlebury Park. ​“Why can’t it be here?” 

Jenkins and 20 of her neighbors were on a field trip in the park Monday evening after spending two hours arguing about whether the community should embrace a proposal to build a donated $50,000 new skatepark in Scantlebury.

The group had just walked over from the Yale Police Department headquarters next door, at 101 Ashmun St. Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison had convened a second community meeting there to discuss the proposal.

The skate park plan, pitched by lifelong New Haven skateboard enthusiasts J. Joseph and Steven Roberts, is backed by $50,000 in outside funding from Yale’s new Steven A. Schwarzman Center, and Elm City Innovation Collaborative​’s Could Be Fund, which finances new public initiatives. The project would be funded entirely through external grants, without drawing from the money already allotted by the city for developing Scantlebury Park.

When the idea was first announced to Dixwell residents at a meeting in early June, the room quickly broke into an argument.

Thursday night was no different. Yelling erupted before the meeting began.

“This is about fun, this is about activity, this is about losing weight, this is about playing games,” Morrison said as she started the meeting. ​“You’d think this was about taxes, not about a park.”

City parks Director Rebecca Bombero presented a PowerPoint outlining the potential benefits of a skate park. Then Joseph and Roberts pitched the crowd on why a skate park would be a valuable addition to the neighborhood.

It would serve as an alternative to ​“having kids skate on the streets, where they could be a hazard or where there are other hazards like cars,” Joseph said.

The park would double as a stage that could be used for events and performances.

Brombero later pointed out that organizations have often rented stages to use at events in Scantlebury Park. A skate park would act as a performance space for free.

After the presentation, attendees of the meeting had the opportunity to ask questions and contribute their input.

One participant, who introduced herself as Liv, spoke to a rise in skateboard culture amongst young people. While Liv is from out of town, she said she frequently rolls at Edgewood Park, New Haven’s only skate park.

“We used to be the only girls at Edgewood Park,” she recalled about her and a friend. ​“But that’s changing.”

“You should just be aware of how much positive impact skateboarding can have,” she told the room, saying that the activity was empowering experience for her growing up.

Other attendees echoed criticisms raised at the last meeting, leveling accusations that Yale’s funding comes with strings attached, expressing concerns about loud events that might come with the stage, and in particular, voicing a perception that the skate park had been set in stone without community input. (Read more about the feedback at the previous meeting here.)

“What I was concerned about was the process — not skateboarding,” said Roxanne Condon. ​“The process was very anti-neighborhood.”

Morrison explained that Joseph and Roberts were new to the park-planning process and hadn’t known to wait for community input before applying for a grant. ​“They’re young — they’re millennials,” she said.

“I will acknowledge that we made a misstep in not approaching the community first,” Joseph said. He said they thought it would be easier to acquire funding first before pitching the community.

Michael Harris, the director of Elm City Innovation Collaborative, noted that this meeting wasn’t a required part of the process to build park. The only mandatory step was to clear the external funding for the project with the Board of Alders at a public hearing, he said. But Morrison had suggested soliciting community input at meetings first. She also soon plans to approach the neighborhood’s Community Management Team before going to the Board of Alders.

“If I wanted to be an asshole alder, I would have come around after” the park’s approval, Morrison said.

Two hours into the meeting, Morrison paused the heated discussion. She led everyone just outside the room where the meeting took place, to Scantlebury Park.

On the walk over, she called the skate park ​“an awesome idea.” She said she hopes it will encourage kids to pursue a constructive, healthy activity in a safe environment.

Morrison gathered everyone toward the middle of the park for a sense of what a skate park might look like on the ground.

The group watched as Morrison stood by a tree near the park’s center. Joseph walked southwards from where she was standing, measuring a 90-foot distance from her — equal to the length of the proposed skate park — using an app from his phone.

He ended up feet away from the park’s splash pad, which several attendees said was unacceptable.

“There are a million kids right there in the summer,” said Jenkins.

“This one is not gonna work,” Morrison agreed.

Next, they considered a spot in a grassy area toward Ashmun Street. If positioned there, the skate area would bisect the western half of the park.

Morrison said she liked this position better, observing that there could be room on either side of the skate park for an audience to sit during a performance or another event.

Jeffrey Wickersham asked about whether the skate park would lead to a higher number of events hosted in the park per year. Currently, the park hosts between two and five events a year on average, Morrison said. She said she couldn’t predict how those numbers would change.

Several members of the group raised concerns that more people would be drawn to the area as a result of the skate park.

“It’s definitely going to bring more people to the park,” Morrison said. ​“That’s what we want. It’s a city park.”

“We take ownership of this park, but it belongs to 136,000 people” of New Haven, she added.

DeAri Allick, who grew up in Dixwell and attended Hillhouse High School with Roberts, spoke in support of the skate park. ​“It keeps kids off the streets,” he said. ​“It’ll lessen violence.”

Allick founded Fearless Builders, a New Haven-based nonprofit dedicated to youth empowerment. His organization has hosted events in Scantlebury Park for years, and plans to hold its fourth annual Fathers and Families Festival there this coming Sunday.

The group came to a consensus that the meeting should end at 9 p.m., when the sky had grown dark and mosquitos were beginning to emerge.

As the attendees dispersed, Allick said he was surprised by some neighbors’ pushback against the park. He said he had decided to attend the meeting mainly to support Roberts.

“I thought he had it in the bag,” he said. ​“I didn’t know how serious this was.”

He vowed to bring a crowd of people to speak out in favor of the park at the next meeting.