YMCA parking lot expansion surprises neighbors
Workers removed trees and vines from a 30-foot buffer between the facility and several houses. The Y plans to plant trees and shrubbery there.
By RICHARD DANIELSON
Published February 5, 2005
PALM HARBOR - The new Greater Palm Harbor Branch YMCA has been open only since October, and it is already moving a lot of dirt for an expansion.
For the Y, whose membership has doubled in its first three months, the project to expand its parking lot from 77 to 297 spaces is expected to provide convenience and an added measure of safety to members, some of whom have had to park along 16th Street.
But the site work, which began last month, brought an unpleasant surprise to about a half-dozen homeowners in neighboring Westlake Village. They expected the Y to maintain a 30-foot-wide natural buffer behind their homes on Sandy Hook Road.
Instead, workers took down oak trees, hanging vines and other vegetation all the way to the fence, giving the Westlake Village residents a view of the YMCA's property that they never had before. Now they say the facility's lights shine in their property, and conversations from the Y's pool are clearly audible on their lanais. They worry about headlights from cars pulling into the parking lot bouncing into their homes.
"If we had known it was going to look like this, we probably would have moved," said Janice Pires, 45, a teacher whose back yard abuts the YMCA's land.
YMCA administrators met with homeowners Thursday night to discuss the problems.
"We want a good relationship," Randy McElwain, executive director of the Palm Harbor YMCA, said Friday. "We don't want to upset the community which we serve. That doesn't make sense."
In response to neighbors' concerns, McElwain said the Y will look at the fence that separates the facility from the neighborhood, will plant shrubbery that will grow more quickly and fully, will explore ways to keep noise to a minimum and will look at reducing glare from its lights while still providing the illumination its members need for safety.
McElwain said the Y is trying to be a good neighbor and has already adjusted its lights at night.
Neighbors said Friday that it appeared the YMCA administrators listened to them, but wish the organization had thought about the effect of the parking expansion on their property before it began.
"They really stubbed their toe by not addressing us back here" sooner, said Douglas Hoelzle, 54.
"I think we had a good meeting," he said. "They know they've got some issues."
The YMCA plans to plant more than 100 oak trees to replace what was removed. Neighbors note that those will be small and will take years to grow into a shady buffer. McElwain said she understood the concern, and the Y wants to do the best it can for residents. But the trees and landscaping are being donated, and last year's hurricanes affected the supply of trees everywhere, she said.
The YMCA branch at 1600 16th St. has seen its individual, couples and family memberships double since opening. Those categories of membership, plus participants in YMCA programs, now encompass about 4,000 people." "They're parking in a place where it could be unsafe for other pedestrians and other people in their cars," McElwain said. "... We knew we had to do something fairly quickly."
The YMCA had nearly all of the $329,000 needed to expand the parking lot, so it decided to go ahead with that.
Once the parking lot is done, probably by the end of April, the next phase of expansion at the YMCA will await further fundraising.
YMCA administrators have planned to start a second phase that includes a basketball gym, larger wellness center, larger children's area, new entrance and lobby, and an expanded group exercise room once they raise the $2-million needed to build it.
Some members have said the Y's wellness center, which includes aerobic exercise equipment and weights, is small, McElwain said, so it's possible that an expansion that does not include the gym could begin once the Y raises about $1-million.
"As funding allows, we're looking to do that," McElwain said. "That is probably targeted as one of the first things we're looking to do."