Day Fourteen, Thank Yous, Goodbyes, Handshakes and Hugs

Today was my last day in the office but a busy day all the same. I started off by asking Kevin some questions in regard to the development plan and then finished the 1^st draft of my binder. I submitted that draft to Kevin who reviewed it to make sure it was an accurate representation of the process. While Kevin was critiquing my binder I worked on printing the images and text that I needed for the tri fold poster. The poster, I decided, would be more image based and was intended to draw people in and give them a broad idea of what I did. The binder than contains more of the research and my process for creating the conceptual design. After I had finished the final edits to my binder and had printed the images I needed it was time to say goodbye. This experience was incredibly beneficial and I am so pleased that I was given these opportunity’s to learn and to grow over these past three weeks.

Day Thirteen

Today I started by reviewing my conceptual design and making some very minor changes. After that I started working on the binder idea. I brainstormed how it could look and different ways it could function. I decided that I am going to organize it chronologically and have each step be explained by using the process the City of Durango used in regards to the Cameron and Stark property. After I completed a section I looked to see if any images accompanied it or would help to explain the concept. I printed a few images but had a majority already. After I worked on a few sections that did not require images I decided to print out my final designs. This took longer than I expected because I forgot that I needed to format the images to sizes that would fit in the binder. After that was finished I returned to working on the written aspect of the binder. I am going to review the written pieces tonight and make the changes that are needed.



Final Design

Final Design Blow Up South West Corner

Tomorrow I am going to have Kevin check over the binder to insure that everything I have said reflects what the City actually did. After I get the go ahead or make changes I am going to print out the written pieces and my binder will be complete. I will then go over it and make sure nothing else could be added to improve it. That afternoon I believe that I am going to go home and finish working on the tri fold.

Day Twelve

Today I began by refining my 2^nd draft. I had to replicate each aspect (the road, river trail, parking) multiple times in order to get the map to represent my vision for the property. I also added individual parking stalls. Each regular car stall is 9 feet wide and 18 feet long however the larger stalls intended for trailers are 18 feet wide and 60 feet long. There is the possibility, if everyone cooperated, to fit 5 trailers in the Sherman parking area and between 12 and 13 cars in the regular parking areas. I also added a buffer between the Sherman Parking and the Animas View drive road, Oxbow Residences and the train tracks. After I was done with other smaller refinements I met with Scott to review my 2^nd draft. During the meeting we talked about the final issues that I had with my design. We talked about adding a natural surface trail from the parking lot farthest south to the beach, the width of trails and roads, buffer zones and most importantly the trailer parking in the Sherman Parcel. In my 2^nd draft the stalls are at an angle to help inexperienced drivers with parking but this formation required a second exit and that was not ideal. If the stalls are parallel to the entrance drive then drivers can enter, park, pull forward, turn and pull out of the same entrance drive. The only restriction is that this design requires more space so it will need more landscaping but it would be less than creating a new exit.

2nd Draft Parking

Final Draft Parking and added Trail

Tomorrow I am going to add the last finishing touches to my conceptual design and then begin work on the binder idea. I am still going to use the poster board as a display but the majority of my process and the content that I have created will be in the binder.

Day Eleven

Today I started by looking over the notes I took last Friday while I had been walking around the property. I made sketches on maps and also took written notes about the topography of the land and obscurities of the property. As I was looking over these maps I was also thinking about how I was going to display my project. I had originally thought that a display board would have enough space to display the content but I am now thinking that a binder will be needed. I am going to organize it by steps and have my drafts and notes in it as well. After consulting my notes I began to make the necessary changes. These included moving the road and the River Trail closer to the train tracks, moving the trail head and adding another parking area. This parking area does not add more parking because the Sherman Parking is now devoted to parking trailers. One question that still exists is if an exit can be made in the Sherman Parking area. This exit is the only way to be able to park trailers in a simple fashion that accommodates inexperienced drivers. The extra parking area in tandem with a trail will give access to family’s going to the beach. This will reduce pedestrian traffic across the dirt road. Today I also walked the road again to get a better understanding of where I am going to put the trail head so that it is both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

Trailer Parking in Sherman Parking Lot

Beginnings of 2nd Draft

 

Tomorrow I am going to finish up my 2^nd Draft and talk to Scott about it. After that I am going to start refining the written aspect of my project. My goal is to be finished with my project by Wednesday so that it can be proofread and I can make the minor revisions that are needed.

Day Ten, Week Two Down

Today I started off by walking around the property and taking notes. I began by looking at the Sherman property and trying to visualize how trucks with trailers would be able to park and exit the property. I decided that if this were to happen another exit would need to be developed so I am going to discuss this with Scott the next time I meet with him. I then walked down the dirt road and took notes about the gradient and slope of the land. Some earth work is necessary to fit the 16 foot wide road and the River Trail and I am also going to talk about that with Scott. I then continued to walk down the dirt road and found that it forked just after the Oxbow Homes ends. The straight path will continue to be the River Trail while the turn heading to the beach will be the dirt road. I then noted the angle of the bank of the river decided where the put in should be located. The slope becomes less severe the farther west you go on the beach and I decided that a concrete put in would not be necessary. The water is also calmer around the point of the beach so this would make this area more appealing for a put in. After this I looked over my design and made some changes on paper but have not applied them to my 1^st draft. I am also wrestling with the idea of branching the natural surface trail off on the River Trail to maintain the forestry in the narrowest part of the property.



This is a map the shows where water can advance to. This area should not be developed for fear of erosion.

In  this draft there are multiple developments that pass through this area so they will have to be moved above that area.

On Monday I am going to finish up my 2^nd draft of my design and talk to Scott about it. Once I receive my final round of feedback I will edit my design accordingly and then have Scott review it one last time, later in the week, to check to insure distances and measurements are correct. After that I am going to focus on the written aspect of my project and have Kevin insure its accuracy.

Day Nine

Today I stared by adding a few more measurements to my map. I found the width of the dirt road leading to the turnaround and the diameter of the turnaround. After I had finished the minor changes I met with Scott McClain and we discussed my conceptual design. I took notes on a lot of things that needed improvement but a few that were important were the locations of the road and River Trail and parking. Scott pulled up the floodplain map on the county GIS and this showed that a small portion on the property can fill up with water which means it could also be a wetlands area. In my design the dirt road and the River Trail pass right through this so I am going to have to move the road and the River Trail westward to avoid this area. Another change would be adding River Trail access towards town. This is a simple fix by reflecting the access from Animas View drive to go both North and South. The main issue we talked about was the parking situation. One of the goals of the property is to allow for public access to river and this means some people will be pulling trailers. There has to be a location for these trailers and at this point I only had areas to park not designated stalls. To park a trailer you need about 12 feet on each side of a 40 foot stall. The only area that can accommodate that type of space is on the Sherman property but it would take up all the space. This means parking will have to be on both sides of the road in the area closer to the beach. This however is also necessary because some people will be using this area as an access point to get to the beach so having parking on both sides will minimize the amount of pedestrian traffic across the dirt road. A path will also now have to put in to bring people from those parking spaces to the beach.

Tomorrow I am going to start by walking the property and taking notes on certain aspects of it, obscurities, how the placement the each aspect of my design. Then, at the office, I will make the changes that are needed. I am also going to talk with Scott at another point to discuss the changes that I have made.

Day Eight

Data Layers

Yesterday Steve Smith, my Chemistry Teacher, stopped by to visit and check up on what I have been learning. He brought up some logistical questions that I did not have the answers to such as how many parking spaces are there, do you need the second parking lot and distances of the trails. So today I started off by locating the measuring tool in the GIS program. I then traced the natural surface and hard surface trails with the tool and this gave me the length of each. The natural surface trail alone is .8 miles but with the extension loop it is just about 1 mile and the hard surface trail will add .4 miles to the River Trail. I also used the measuring tool to determine the dimensions of the different parking areas. With the knowledge that each parking space must be nine feet wide and 18 feet in depth I found that the Sherman Parking lot could hold a minimum of 36 cars and the small lot with a gap at the trail head entrance could have 10 spots. I also finished organizing all the data layers on the map into folders they can easy be toggled between. At 12 I attended the Green Business Round table which was about bringing local food into the school cafateria. There is also a Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting at 5:00pm but I am going to miss that due to participating in a River Watch Lab.

Parking areas (in orange)

 

Tomorrow I am going to present my conceptual design to Scott, the landscape architect for the city, and receive his feedback. After that I am going analyze his suggestions and apply the changes I see fit. I am positive this will push over into Friday so I may work at home for a little while Friday morning.

Day Seven

Last night I attended a meeting with the Natural Lands Preservation Advisory Board. The meeting began by electing a new president and vice president for the board and the approval of the minutes from the last meeting. Then the board discussed community member comments on the Horse Gulch Management Plan. Major concerns were adding different types of biking trails, more aggressive trails and if dogs should be allowed to be off leash. It was decided that the board supported the idea of rephrasing the signage and law to allow owners to have their dogs off lease if they are under voice control. If not they could be ticketed. This would require the changing of laws and signage. This gave a transition to discussion over how the wildlife that populates that area is being affected by the increase in human activity. Talks about the balance between recreation and wildlife lead to the topic of seasonal closures and that was going to be researched more and brought up at later meetings. The Oxbow Park and Preserve was the next topic on the agenda. Many members of the public had showed up that lived near the Park and Preserve. There was some debate over what language of the conservation easement and a small community need to have more input during the purchasing of the property. There was also a comment made that there should also be a plan for how to protect the wildlife on the property and this should be as important as the other developments that may be occurring on the Sherman Parcel and the Oxbow Park and Preserve.

Today I started off by attempting to translate my conceptual idea that I had in my head and had sketched out onto a map in the GIS program. I had exponentially more success today than I did yesterday. I refined the natural surface trails and the River Trail and added the turn around, Parking areas, River Trail access and the Trail head. I am going to talk with Scott, the landscape architect, on Thursday, about my design. I conducted my mentor interview today and Steve Smith my Chemistry teacher stopped by the office.  

Updated Trail System (in yellow)



Dirt Road and Turn Around for Buses and Trailers (in green)

Parking areas (in orange)

 Tomorrow I am going to refine my conceptual design more however I am attending the Green Business Round table at the Strater and then I have a River Watch lab with Steve so I will be quite busy.

These designs are not final and do not reflect views of the City of Durango.

Day Six, Week Two

Today I started at home working on my conceptual design using the GIS software. I made some minor changes to the Oxbow Park and Preserve boundaries and added a natural surface trail system. After I arrived to the office I began to look at my original sketch and realised that the River Trail didn’t flow very well, there were too many sharp turns. To remedy this I made it cross the dirt road farther north. Another issue I ran into was how to get pedestrians and others to the River Trail from Animas View Drive. One idea was that there could be an extension that passed through the Sherman Property but this would cut off half of the parking because cars couldn’t cross the trail. Another option would be to have the River trail follow the perimeter of the Sherman property. This would allow for more parking but would create poor flow on the River Trail.

New Property Boundaries



Natural Surface Trail

I am going to be attending a Natural Lands Preservation Advisory Board Meeting at the Library tonight. For tomorrow I am going to focus on the River Trail and how it will pass through these two properties.

These designs are not final and do not reflect views of the City of Durango.

Day Five, We are Making Progress

Today I finished the outline of the process the city goes through to develop a property. I worked on the outline until my meeting with Kevin at 11:30 where we discussed what I had so far. Kevin helped by adding little bits of information here and there that I had missed and insured that what I had was accurate. He also gave me the 2001 Master Plan to look through to help me distinguish how the property came to be of interest to the City of Durango. After the meeting I went back to my work space and synthesized what we had talked about into words and put that into my outline. I then took a break from the outline and started doing some very basic sketches of what I think my conceptual design will look like. As you can see it’s a little disorganized but I started exploring the GIS technology and this will make my design much clearer.

At this point I only have the boundaries of the Sherman Parcel and the Oxbow Park and Preserve but on Monday I am going to start adding some of the basic pieces like the Roads and the Railroad tracks and possibly parking lot on the Sherman Parcel.

These designs are not final and do not reflect views of the City of Durango.

Day Four

Kevin was called in for jury duty today so as a result came to work a little later. This gave me time to read over the GOCO Grant Application Selection Criteria for Submittal document. After he arrived we discussed questions I had concerning the difference between buying an easement and buying a fee interest. If a landowner sells a conservation easement they still maintain ownership over the property but they have given up rights to develop and build on that property. However if they city buys a fee interest then they own the property and the previous landowner does not have any responsibilities in relation to the land. I also found it interesting that if a landowner donates property for a conservation easement they receive a tax deduction. This tax deduction is determined by the difference of the value of the property if it was developed or not but if the landowner does not pay that amount of money in taxes they can sell the tax credits to other people! Today I also found out that the Sherman parcel located on the other side of the train tracks is not a part of the conservation easement so it can be developed.





Sherman Parcel

Tomorrow I am going to continue research and the explanations of the individual pieces of the process.

Day Three

Today I started by having a meeting with Kevin. We discussed questions I had regarding the location of the easement and how it could be used. The hatched markings on the map represent an area that has different restrictions on how it can be developed and used. Then Kevin described to me how sales tax was initiated by a need for a Recreation Center and the River Trail in 1999 and how another sales tax was passed in 2005. Then we talked about the how the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Natural Lands Advisory Board influence the Cities decisions and direction. Also I learned that last night after a series of failed attempts an agreement was made on the name of what was formally known as the Sherman and Cameron/Sterk parcels, The Oxbow Park and Peserve. This encompasses 43.71 acres of land on both sides of the railroad tracks and the river.

Map Of Oxbow Park and Preserve

Tomorrow I am going to work on explaining one aspect of the process in detail and insuring that how I have organized my steps makes sense and is chronologically accurate.

Day Two

Today Kevin was out of the office on a series of meetings so I continued doing research using the City of Durango Parks, Open Space, Trails and Recreation Master Plan and the Durango Animas River Management Plan. In these documents I focused on community input and community need. These forces are what drive and guide the city when planning projects. Community input is a critical piece of the entire process. It can be the initiator, if a community member brings up an issue, it can shape the design, what the public wants out of the project and it can expedite the project, based on how important the product will be. In the case of Cameron/Sterk property more river access and put-ins and the conservation of the ecosystems located by the river was needed and this was voiced by the community. Then the public participated in creating the master plan that dictates the framework for how development should advance and finally community members are participating in the type of development that will occur on that property.

Tomorrow I am going to begin creating a diagram that shows the process the city goes through from acquiring land to maintaining the final product. After the basic outline has been made I am going begin applying it to the Cameron/Sterk property.

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1st Day!

 Today I began by getting a broad understanding of the process that the city goes through from acquiring the land to finalizing the plans to developing and building on that property. I also gained a better understanding of the different people in the process and the role they play in it. For today I investigated the master plan formulated in April of 2010 and began to look at the initial phases of the Cameron Sterk Property. This included the conservation easement and the environmental site assessments. One thing I found that I found interesting was approximately 20 cars and car remints were found during the Phase 1 Environmental Assessment to have been dumped near the river to reduce erosion. The Phase 2 Environmental Assessment reviled that there was minimal contamination and therefore should be left in place.

 

Tomorrow I am going to determine what the community wants from the Cameron/Sterk property.