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STAFF REPORT CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR A CERTIFIATE OF APPROPRIATENESS Application Number: 2001 -0412 Property Location: Mayor Voorde Park Property Owner: City of South Bend Landmark or District Designation: Edgewater Local Historic District STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE/HISTORIC CONTEXT, Assessor's records show that this piece of land has never been in private ownership, and has consequently never been surveyed or assessed. It is Plat No. 18- 3038 -1471 of Harper's Court Addition & Adjacent Tracts. At one time, a South Bend municipal canoeing club met and had storage facilities there, but this was discontinued, and the land shifted to general neighborhood recreational uses in approximately the 1950s or very early 1960s. Also at about this time it acquired the name "Mayor Voorde Park." RECOMMENDATION There has been a problem with private individuals driving trucks off the edge of the riverbank to launch boats, in this and other city parks. The Parks Department has found the installation of large boulders along the riverbank to be an effective protective device. However, the plague of SUVs and trucks driving over riverbanks to launch boats has become so pervasive that the city is experiencing a shortage of boulders. Maintenance Superintendent Mike Dyszkiewicz suggested that park benches anchored in concrete might do as well, and be easier to find. My initial understanding was that the Parks Department had or could get such benches. Now it appears that we or some private donor would have to supply them, and then the parks Department would install them. The South Bend Police Department recommends that any benches in city parks have arms, as that apparently discourages homeless folk from sleeping on them in preference to the homeless shelter. Staff recommends that the Commission (1) Approve the placement of park benches (of a style having backs and arms) at locations around the perimeter of the park, generally facing the river and located both where the view is pleasant, and /or where they will discourage illegal truck traffic; and, (2) Approve the installation of whatever boulders may be available for placement at those areas the Parks Department deems most severely threatened, the boulders to be spaced 7' apart. As part of the Edgewater Historic District Tree Planting that the Commission approved in February, three American elm trees are being donated for planting in this park. They are partly funded by the Elm Research Institute / Van Buren Grant received for this project, and partly funded by donations from Gina DeLaruelle, in honor of her father, Tina Assimos, and Lynn Patrick. These trees can be approved as part of the general Certificate of Appropriateness that will accompany planting of the street trees for the project, or can be listed on this Certificate of Appropriateness for the benches or boulders.