Concerns about Kent Park and an attempt to make minor adjustments to its design arose at Huntsville council’s March 28 meeting, but council decided to stay the course—for now.
Deputy Mayor Nancy Alcock said she’s been hearing concerns from the community.
She reminded council there had been discussions about having a handful of very distinct natural boulders in the park, much larger than the ones that have been currently placed there.
“It all started late last fall when all of the armour rock was put into Kent Park, and I know it’s still a construction zone. I get it. I understand that, but I heard actually from a number of people in the community who wondered what we were doing in Kent Park,” said Alcock, also adding that the comments were not entirely favourable.
She asked whether large natural boulders are still the plan for the park. She also questioned whether council had an appetite for using a little bit of granite to soften the look and provide an accent to at least the entranceway at one of the corners going into the park.
Alcock said she’s been asked about placing an art installation in the park, given how popular the Tom Thomson statue has been at Civic Square. She told her fellow councillors that if they agreed, she would like to see some discussion about where it could be located and how to go about it “because we’ve learned our lesson [about] installing a piece of art thinking that everyone will love it. So we don’t want to do that, but we used to have an art acquisition committee that was made up of members of the arts community and staff.”
Alcock said she just wanted to put the concerns before council and see if there’d be any support to make some enhancements. “I put it out to council for response and if I don’t have any support for any of it, well then I know where council’s at and I gave it my last shot,” she explained.
Councillor Bob Stone said he agreed with the boulders, he was okay with a little granite and felt a little gun-shy about an art installation but would be happy to entertain a dialogue about it.
Councillor Tim Withey said he’s concerned with making changes at this juncture. “I mean are we trying to apply band-aids on stuff?” He questioned how much more adding such features will cost. “I think we need to settle on something, make sure it’s within budget, and do it.”
Councillor Dan Armour said Kent Park is a focal point in the community and while Alcock does have some great ideas, “I think we should maybe stay with where we are right now and see what the finished product looks like and then go from there.” He also questioned whether the larger boulders could pose a safety issue with kids climbing on them. He said he would be okay with looking at it further down the road.
Councillor Jonathan Wiebe agreed with Alcock and said it was also his impression that accent pieces in the form of larger boulders would be placed in the park. “I think it’s a miss to not do that. It’s an attraction, you know, it really does show off what we’re about.”
He said trying to add it after the fact is a bad idea “because moving large stones into a finished surface, you’re just asking for trouble.”
Wiebe thought the boulders had maybe been missed or underestimated and said it’s something the Town needs to look into before it’s too late. He said the granite accent at the entranceway is probably a minor expense and agreed with Alcock in that it would probably go a long way to softening the edges. “But if committee felt that they didn’t want to change too big a course then it’s something that’s obviously much easier to remedy or adjust later, but as far as the bigger boulders I think it’s going to be a missed opportunity if we don’t add some real character in there.”
Councillor Brian Thompson said he’d be onside with adding a couple of boulders to the entrance but disagreed with any further changes. “Let’s get going with this… it’s a park for crying out loud. We’ve kicked it around for two years for crying out loud so let’s get on with it.”
Councillor Dione Schumacher clarified that her concerns at the time when granite-feathered pavers had been discussed involved ease of accessibility for those with visual impairment issues. “I do know, again working with populations with development disabilities—Down syndrome, anyone with dementia—the darker sort of contrast creates a visual of depth perception that’s harder to sort of navigate.”
Schumacher said she was okay with adding boulders, as had been discussed, and noted that an art acquisition committee does exist.
Huntsville Mayor Karin Terziano reminded council that the tender for the project has already gone out. “This project would’ve been finished had we not lost the first contractor that started it because we had to get another contractor to finish it. I just feel like we’re not giving the contractor a chance to complete the park and we’re assuming that the park is going to look like what it looks like today, which we know it isn’t. It doesn’t have anything in it,” she said.
As far as the large boulders go, Terziano said she’s not convinced that every boulder that’s supposed to go in the park is there yet. “I think that’s a good question for the contractor and if the boulders the size that the deputy mayor is highlighting aren’t there, we need to get them there before the contractor finishes the park,” she said, adding that the contractor is supposed to be returning in April. “I have a little bit of concern about changing much other than to ensure we have the boulders that we’ve always envisioned that would be there and I think that’s staff’s job to ensure that they are there.”
Terziano said as far as an art installation goes, it may return to the council table and council may go through a public process to see what people want to see in the park, but it won’t be part of getting the park completed. “It will be an add-on… We want people back in it by June,” she said of the park and its completion.
“You know, I have to agree with Councillor Thompson we’ve been kicking this one around for a couple of years and I think we should have faith in the fact that this park is going to turn out just fine,” she said.
Staff was asked to follow up on the boulders.
Related: Council narrows in on Kent Park redesign
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Wow, so much ado about..boulders! For heavens sake, just put together a pleasant, peaceful place for hot, tired shoppers’ to rest for a few moments to plan their next town experience. Benches, flowering bushes, a calming fountain come to mind. Too bad the trees are gone..nice shade with no cost to the town coffers. Right now it all looks like a deflated stonehenge.
Much ado! Much ado! Kent Park I imagine will turn out beautiful as everyone hopes. A fractional part of an acre; on the small side of properties sold in the subdivisions of the 50’s; such as Riverside, when Mr. Zimmer applied for a permit to subdivide and my great uncle John Carter’s farm became Maple Heights. What would our local developers have done with those fields?
The sky would be the limit. Literally! Now it’s people warehouses, with rather unimaginative architecture, adorned with little ‘pokey-hat’ dormers and ‘diving-platform’ roofs over balconies. Add-ons to detract from the simplicity of the design.
I understand the economics of it all, get as many families housed per acre as you possibly can. People from the south (?) have sold homes for a million and more, then come to Muskoka and buy in; with a few hundred grand left over to augment the retirement.
But what we have now is portions of the town that look akin to residential areas to the south! It is not like the town I grew up in and though I know things have to change and grow, why does it have to grow the way a few developers see fit, and so at odds with what the people want?
Or is what’s happening really what the people want and it’s my opinion that is so at odds with this expanding Huntsville?
In that case, I would ruefully note the comment made as to “showing what we are all about”. Maybe our park should have a little min-excavator with it’s bucket jammed in a hole, some blasted rock, a few stumps, some shredded trees!
Just cynicism I suppose, but just because what is happening, is happening, doesn’t mean I have to like it.
So I cherish the couple of acres we have, with our rural neighbors and hardly seeing another light after dark, except when a car goes past.
I’m sure I’m not alone.
So many comments ,which is good but no one will listen. I’m trusting that there was a GOOD qualified landscape architect chosen for this project.
Has anyone looked at other communities or cities to get ideas?
Love the natural stones, maybe some can be flat, allowing people to sit and enjoy beautiful flowers.
Keep it simple but get it totally completed, it’s dragged on long enough.
Keep in mind it will be the focal point on our Main Street.
I concur with Steven Bodrug that we are missing the original and beautiful artist’s conception entirely by insisting on cookie-cutter materials in bland terraforming that in no way can be conceived as natural-looking. Kent Park should reflect the truest possible Muskoka natural environment. Please do not continue with this industrialized expedient. Please engage artistry, time, energy and money for a permanent and truly beautiful Muskoka landscape.
I still regret that my suggestion of a water fountain in Kent Park was rejected. With a lower trough it would provide drinking water for animals such as dogs, and could be used to refill water bottles to reduce the use of plastic disposable ones.
Maybe one or two can be installed somewhere else in a centra place in town.
Henk Rietveld: “Rock is rock…granite, limestone, whatever. Stop nitpicking, and get on with it!”
With respect, Henk, this comment betrays great ignorance. Also, natural granite boulders are not remotely analogous to the cut armourstone that is depicted in the header.
Speaking of which, I don’t know if anyone else stipulated the inclusion of natural granite boulders, but when the Town of Huntsville was asking for public opinion, a few years ago, with respect to the redesign of Main Street (which included a revamp of Kent Park), I specifically urged the powers that be to *NOT* use cut armourstone in the Kent Park revitalization, rather, to use natural granite boulders. Why? Armoustone is extracted from a quarry and cut into uniform, rectangular slabs, thereby detracting from the natural aesthetic of the rock, and clearly indicating that it has been manipulated by human hands into a repeated, monotonous shape.
Not to mention, when multiple specimens are used in a particular project, each rock is barely distinguishable from the others, as they share similar dimensions, and virtually identical colours and textures. Just looks at the ones in the park now; they’re all a bland grey tone with basically no discernible features that set them apart. Natural boulders come in various shapes and sizes, with an array of colours, such as black, pink, red, and grey, as well as sometimes having bulging veins and traces of quartz. All of those aspects contribute to a much more visually interesting rock than armourstone, which when placed together in groups, is a natural equivalent to cookie subdivisions, where every house looks identical to its neighbours, resulting in a dull, characterless environment.
Natural granite boulders, on the other hand, are rocks in their unadulterated, organic form and beauty. The latter objectively is superior, as it is a product of nature, which hasn’t been sliced by human hands into an unnatural, uniform, shape. If one wants to get an idea of how granite boulders could look in Kent Park, look at the ones that were included in Village of Yorkville Park and Sugar Beach, both located in Toronto. Additionally, this artistic rendering of a revitalized Kent Park (see link) pretty much nailed, exactly, what I have been envisioning, for years; kudos to the artist.
https://myhuntsville.ca/streetscape
Notice how the rocks in the park look like naturally occurring outcroppings that are breaking the surface of the earth? Incoporating such an element into the park would create the illusion that these boulders were always there, and that the existing neighbourhood was built up around them. The current armourstone looks anything but natural, in its altered form, and contrived layout. Rocks don’t naturally arise in circular, serpentine, chain-like patterns, as is the case with the current status of the park’s makeover. The goal should be to try to replicate the wild, irregular, seemingly random patterns of nature, as well as that can be achieved, as opposed to making it so obvious that the landscape in question has been deliberately planned.
From the sounds of the article, no one really knows what is going on with respect to how the park is going to turn out, which implies that there is a lack of communication between the Town and the contractor. One would think that some Town representative would be closely monitoring the construction process, and keeping tabs on what is happening, then relaying that information back to Council. Why has it taken so long to finally voice concerns about the absence of any natural boulders, now that the project appears to be nearing completion? I noticed this, back in November, when the Diggin’ Downtown Instagram page showed the armourstone in place, which I subsequently made some criticisms and inquiries about.
There is no room, currently, to do what was initially planned, and don’t kid yourselves if you think some remedy will happen, down the line; that’s not happening. Once the park is finished, then any unrealized aspirations will be vanquished. What we’ll be left with will probably remain for the rest of our lifetimes, at least, which is why it was so crucial to get this right, now, and to go beyond the usual bare minimum that we Ontarians always tend to accept. Instead of always penny-pinching every project, why not dream a little, cast aside short term financial concerns, and embrace an audacious, long-term vision? Why are we always so timid, and satisfied with a ‘good enough’ attitude? Our ancestors didn’t share those sentiments. What changed?
To build any project, public or otherwise, requires some foresight, and the ability to look beyond the here and now, and justify spending more at present, for a more spectacular product that will be enjoyed for generations to come. Squandering a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a bold statement, due to apathy, the absence of a united vision, carried out by an inspiring leader(s), as well as the the usual excuses about cost, and its accompanying justification for laziness, would be a sad, but all too familiar reality. It appears that we’re going to make yet another blunder, here, which could have been easily avoided with greater care and attention to detail.
Trying to salvage this project by imply plopping down a couple of natural boulders, amongst the sea of armourstone, won’t cut it. There will be no relationship between the former and the latter, and it will just make things look haphazard and bizarre. All that really needed to be done, from the outset, was incorporate roughly a dozen boulders (maybe a bit more), of various sizes, large, medium, maybe a few small ones, accompanied by some granite pavers, trees, plants, and flowers (in terms of the natural aspects of the park). Again, please refer to this rendering, below, for a rough idea of how this would look. This is why we need artists and other creative types involved in this sort of process, as too often it is the case that those making decisions about architectural/design and other aesthetic issues are unable to envision fine details in a way that artistically-minded people can. I don’t mean for this to be insulting, rather, merely an observation. Not everyone has a keen eye for detail, but can be made to appreciate aesthetic judgements better with some gentle elucidation.
https://myhuntsville.ca/streetscape
There really isn’t any excuse why this wasn’t achievable, considering that we live among the Canadian Shield, and have a seemingly endless reservoir of natural boulders and rocks, literally, in our backyard, which could be extracted from excavation sites, or possibly from the landscape (though, I prefer not to disturb the natural environment). There is an ample supply of such materials in the vicinity of Huntsville; it’s not like cost would be exorbitant, such as the case would be if they had to be transported a great distance.
Lastly, with respect to a water feature, I don’t think anyone was expecting a grand fountain, but why is/was it not feasible to implement a waterfall, or stream of water down a rockface, and into a rocky basin, as the artist depicted in the rendering that I have included? Surely this wouldn’t cost much money, and would would merely require a few large rocks, which are not in short supply in Muskoka, and the surrounding districts, in addition to plumbing under the park, which wouldn’t have been difficult to install, if that hasn’t already happened. With respect to sourcing rocks, there were literally dozens of beautiful, large and medium-sized boulders at the clear-cut plot of land at the southeast corner of Highway 60 and Earls Rd, up until 2020, at least.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3401709,-79.214975,389m/data=!3m1!1e3
As of last year, however, they had largely been removed. What happened to them? Some of those could have been used in this project. There were some gorgeous pieces there that I wished I could have had, but they were too massive for me to transport, in addition to being impossible to access, due to be blocked by large piles of rock and sediment, which would have required bulldozer to move the earth out of the way, but I digress. There are also, last I looked, several large rocks on the site of the (hotel?) development, just up the road, by the Wendy’s Restaurant. Are they up for grabs?
Council continues to be in denial of the fact that the downtown is in serious need of adequate parking. It’s long overdue for the Town to prioritize the community’s “need” for parking over it’s “want” for parks. Who doesn’t want more greenspace(??); but the want for even more must be reasonably balanced with the community’s very real need for adequate parking. Ignoring that need on the expectations that private lot owners will serve it is both short-sighted and irresponsible.
I suggest not adding a statue of anyone. You know how that’s gone in the last few years; you’ll end up removing it if any skeletons in his/her closet surface!
Keep it simple, neutral, user-friendly, and manageable.
If this town cannot deal with a little rock garden at Kent Park I hope they never have to deal with real problems like our poor streets filled with pot holes and lack of public washrooms and far more.
This would be a great spot for a statue of the founder of Huntsville, Captain Hunt. Also add something for the other pioneers who gave their all to get this Town started.
Sifting the salt, gilding the lily…etc. Decide on a plan, stick with it, and stop trying to mess with it. Rock is rock…granite, limestone, whatever. Stop nitpicking, and get on with it!
Old management saying……
Changing plans in mid-project usually results in accident….
Sat sapienta est….