Okay, well, thank you. Mayor Gilman, council members and staff, I'm Kathy Nolan, I'm with the Ojai Valley Green Coalition, and I'm here just to give a progress report on the latest and the greatest. I wanted to let you know that we, this last, during October, we've had two cleanup days in the creek, led by Scott of PAX Environmental, and Jerry, Mary Newick, who's been working with the Green Coalition.
And I think the first one we had about 14 people, and I think there were 10 on Saturday. I also wanted to say that in November, so November 15th and 22nd, we are working on having two more Well, actually, they're not going to be cleanup days. They're going to be collecting oak acorns and planting. And that will be with our same crew, Scott from PACS and Jerry from the Green Coalition.
And we are reaching out to the different schools in the community and hoping to get that worked out. And on the same day, we're going to also have scheduled two site tours. So if you are interested in going or being part of any of those, you can actually go into our website, and I'll say it now, but I'll say it at the end. It's OjaiValleyGreenCoalition.org.
And then I also wanted to report on Saturday, this past Saturday, October 25th. So we had the cleanup day in the morning. It was 8.30 to 11. Then we had a site tour that actually started at 10. It was only supposed to go for 45 minutes, so we went for an hour and a half. And we could have gone longer, but I had to cut it short because I needed to be back in the conference room for the open house. I was running late.
But we had close to 40 people show up. And some people I had never met before. It was really exciting for people to come and see the property. Once again, a lot of people don't even know it's there when they started seeing it, walking around. People really lit up. And we were also really fortunate to have three people, one of them was attending actually the tour.
And then two other people that happened to be on the site. And so the first one was Brian, Brian Eakins from Historic Preservation Commission. And it's always great to have Brian because the property's landmark, we have the landmark buildings, of course, the pickleball court, there's the tennis court, which is landmark. So Brian was able to, you know, I turned it over to him and we talked about that in certain areas. And he was able to share and give some very important information to the people on the site tour.
Then we also had Scott from PACS Environmental, and he started sharing everything about the restoration area. including about the eucalyptus that I happened to hear Mayor Gilman talking about, and the 200 gallons. And, you know, we got to share that, you know, there's water in that creek now where there wasn't, including even in the summer in August. So it was really exciting to have that. And then as we continue our walk through the property, David White, who does the composting program, happened to be there turning compost. So I asked him if he wouldn't mind sharing a few words And of course, people were very interested in the composting program.
And like I said, it was an hour and a half, and it was only supposed to be 45 minutes, and it could have gone longer. And so basically, what I did share with the people on the tour is, you know, please come back. We're going to be having more site tours open to anyone. And of course, anybody can walk through the garden at any time, but it's really fun for them to ask questions. I don't know everything, but what I do know I could share. We can always get back to them with information that we don't know.
And it was just really... Thank you all for being here. Okay, so I don't want it to be redundant, but I'll just do a quick kind of go through, but we have added, for the most part, more information to a lot of the slides, and then there's a new one at the end, which was our concept plan, which was our latest achievement on the way to the master plan. And then please feel free to ask any questions if you want to, but this is just our vicinity map, you know, where are we, where is the property, And I'm just going to go through it. You saw this last time. This was our site analysis, like what's out there, what do we have.
And then this one we've actually added more information to. There's a project narrative, our overall concept strategies about respecting the native habitat, educational and exploratory opportunities, sustainable building practices. I'm not going to read through all of this, but once again, I don't want to take up too much time here, but you can see that we've gone into more depth, and I think that's the one thing I wanted to point out, that we're trying to be very thorough in our findings, so to speak, and the direction that we want to move forward in.
And one thing that did emerge, Thank you very much. Two years ago, and basically what we've done, we've done some breakdowns here that shows, you know, the total number of trees, which ones are native, which ones are non-native, which ones are invasive, the health of the trees we kind of broke that down to. I'm just kind of doing a little skim over here. But, and then if you look down at the bottom left corner, there's a plan, you know, showing the creek going through it. And the trees that are in dark green, I've mentioned this before but I'll just mention it again, we took Jan Scow's initial assessment of the trees and the trees that he had marked that were either a disease or hazardous or even invasive, we marked those in green in the areas that we feel are a high use zone area.
So it potentially could be a phase one removal for fire protection, for reducing the amount of trees that are actually reseeding, potentially be a problem back in the restoration area, which we spent a lot of time and money on, so a reason to possibly take those out. And then I did mention this last time when I was here. What we'd like to do, to the best that we can, instead of saying, oh, that's, you know, it's a dead tree or a branch, that's a waste material, turn it into a resource where we can use it for what I would call kind of primitive or natural site furnishings, like a bench or some rounds. And you can see the photos up there, there's a bunch of, you know, a group of children sitting on tree rounds or climbing on logs and what have you.
And then, of course, the mulch can go back and be used on the trails and a couple other things we have in mind, too. So I'm hoping to continue that conversation and work with the City on doing that. Those are our potential use areas we had defined before. This slide was shown in August. And then last August, we also had two schematics. We had Option A. And option B. And truthfully, the real difference between the two is just really the location of what we were calling a garden house, which happens to be an orange rectangle. Unfortunately, I don't have a pointer, but it's kind of down in the bottom right quadrant.
And that potentially would be a building, an actual building for use. But essentially everything else was pretty much laid out the same because we're working with a lot of the existing conditions. So we're not proposing, you know, to bulldoze the whole place. It's to work with what's there and to enhance it and add a few things. But I just wanted to state that.
We did have a survey. We had an online survey. We had about 40 people that responded. And this option A actually had the most votes. And probably the two biggest reasons that were indicated were it's a little bit further from the pickleball courts as far as like down during the day. Thank you very much. But it's a rectangle located on the right side, middle of the land.
So it was a little closer to the pickleball courts and didn't have the view. So option A was the choice. This is a new slide just showing some of the possibilities. We kind of looked at programming areas. There's a children's core associated in the vicinity of the carriage house. And there's actually more than that, but that'd be the predominant area. The riparian core, which is already established with the restoration project. Kind of a social core, and this has to do with, I mean, we've got pickleball court on the right, we have children's garden, and a little bit more of a formal garden with a pond that was part of the original estate.
And then the demonstration core is actually pretty much where the demonstration garden is right now. And you can see some of the pictures of some things we're envisioning. Here's our design strategy and the pedestrian and vehicular circulation. So our goal is, to the best that we can, is to have an ADA-accessible primary path. That would be that orange line with an arrow at each end that would actually allow someone in a wheelchair to go through the site.
We've done some preliminary calcs with the grades, and we think it's going to work. There's a couple areas we might have to do a little bit of a switchback, but predominantly it looks pretty good. And then there's secondary trails or paths that are already on site that we've identified need some modifications to make them safer. Which, you know, we're proposing that as well. And then the other big thing that we're looking at is on the bottom right quadrant, it says proposed street parking, and there looks like two asterisks.
If we're having an entrance there, and the AD accessible, we're looking at possibly adding some parking that would be AD accessible. Otherwise, you know, the parking is the city, those city lots, at some point in time, the tent town area, several years down the road, and then, of course, on the street. Our stormwater catchment, I believe we showed this last time. So the only thing we're proposing to do potentially with City Hall, Little House, or the Oak Tree House, or any of the buildings other than the Carriage House, of course we wouldn't be touching any of them, but there is already downspouts and there's an opportunity to capture that water instead of letting it run down. If you've ever been here in the winter, there's some kind of eroded, foggy, soggy areas.
But to actually channel it into a rain garden, it would just slow it, spread it, sink it, you know, essentially we'd go back down to the creek, you know, through the groundwater. But it's a really good learning opportunity and educational opportunity, and just to keep the site a little bit less muddy in the winter. Here's a sample of some rain garden plants and what have you.
And then this is our, and we're calling it the Eco-Center right now, but we know the City Council ultimately will name the park, but it's kind of moving in that direction. So with all that information we gathered, with surveys, we have the schematics, this is the next level, and this is our concept plan. I don't know that I'm going to go through each and every item. I think that might be a little laborious.
And I don't, I guess you can let me know. I don't know if you can read it from where you're sitting. It looks a little too complicated for me. Andy, can you see it? But basically, you know, if I started over on Ventura Street where the compost area is located, which was number, it should be 14. Let me double check. That's the head screen. Compost, 15. Okay.
We have a primary entrance coming from the street, and we're showing that ADA parking on the street. And then you come in, and there's a proposed building there, so this would be kind of a meeting workshop hall. We are showing a small portion that could be a kitchen. We'll see. But this area becomes kind of a prime meeting area, and this is where we're proposing to also do, like, the fire safe garden.
So this is where we would show the fuel modification zones, the defensible space zones. So it becomes a big learning opportunity. And then the same thing with the planting. Once we get past it, it's a little more challenging to do the firescaping. We definitely want to show it as a demonstration, and that would be a prime area to do it. 23 and 24. 23 is a restroom that we're proposing, so it should be for everyone, pickleball players, anyone who's using the park, welcome to use it. And then you'll see a bunch of circles, number 24, that's an orchard, and then right next to it, kind of a community garden area with a shed.
And then as you move along the path, which is actually kind of the footpath of the Deer Path, I guess you could call it, that's there right now, kind of following that same path. We have some carve-out areas for some children's nature-based play. There's some fabulous views. And then, of course, when you get up to the top left, which is number one, it says Flex Spaces and Amphitheater, and that's where the Carriage House is.
So basically, and I know I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again, when we originally received a grant from the city several years ago, We were told that potentially we could use the carriage house. We still have it on the plan. We know it's landmarked. And the big question is, or what we are proposing, we need to get a structural engineer probably to check it out.
Right, Brian? To say, yes, it could be used or not. And then, of course, we'd have to follow the landmark guidelines. But it's actually a really perfect location to do like a children's A little mini museum, nature center. And or for art, art classes could be held there. But so anyway, I'm just, I'm bringing it up again. And then let's see, if I went back down that trail, and I was back to the right of the Kent Hall, Little House is number seven. There's one of our rain gardens. We also have a rain garden behind City Hall, all the downspouts.
We're looking at, once again, looking at the trails in the past. They're upgrading it. And then on the upper right, right opposite of City Hall or the old Council Chamber, there's a lawn there with two Canary Island date palms. And we thought, you know, it's kind of underutilized. Everyone pretty much looked at it. But it could be a small, like an event. So just some minor changes, but That's what we're proposing there.
And of course, the restoration stays, and I'm going to point out on the bottom left, you're going to see number 28 and 32. So number 32 would be a new trail. So this is opposite the creek, on the other side of the creek. So we are looking at, and I know this is a little, you know, it would take a little work, but proposing a bridge across the creek We have a little bit more of a trail system. And then Upward 28 is a really fabulous view. I haven't had a chance to go over there. There's also a protected native plant species there that potentially we could cordon off, have some signage. And I will say that there's an opportunity throughout the entire site to have not only directional signage but educational signage. That really becomes a learning part.
And I think that's my, oh yeah, I'm gonna show one more thing and then I'll open it up if you have any questions. I know this is just a report, but we also on Saturday had a survey. And these are just photos of surveys that we had spread out. And people had a chance to come in with dots and post-its. Some people actually wrote some things on their comments. I'm not going to go through this all tonight. I just wanted to show you what we did on Saturday. But I did want to say that this survey is absolutely awful. And it's going to be online until November 30.
And then we're going to tally everything up until the next time it comes up. It's about programming, so it's, you know, what would you like to see at the parks? We have things like education, public gardens, wildlife habitat, children's area, I'll call it for now. And then there's a series of questions. But, you know, like bird watching and art and, you know, children's play. Workshops for adults about nature, about gardening, all kinds of fun stuff, so you have a chance. I encourage you to go on and please take the survey.
And then I'll just once again say, if you'd like to do that, go to OjaiValleyGreenCoalition.org. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer it. Otherwise, I think that was my last page. Oh, somehow this got at the end, but this was our historical background that I showed before. But there's a lot of good information there. Yeah, there we go. Okay.
