Maintaining and Renovating Our Parks
By City Manager Ken Striplin
Our City of Santa Clarita takes great pride in being an active, thriving community with a wide range of recreational opportunities. Thanks to the leadership of our City Council, Santa Clarita now boasts 37 parks, more than 13,000 acres of open space and more than 100 miles of off-street trails.
As the fall recreation season approaches, we will begin to see the return of more field-heavy sports, such as football, soccer and lacrosse. Due to the impact on the multi-purpose fields, staff has been hard at work prepping parks City-wide to ensure the grass stays thick by over-seeding worn areas, and in some cases, adding brand new sod. Football and soccer cleats are great for our young athletes, but notorious for ripping through the field, so it is incredibly important to keep our grass healthy to continue to provide a good playing surface.
In addition to these renovations, I would like to highlight a couple of improvements at Bouquet Canyon Park and Valencia Heritage Park. At Bouquet Canyon Park (28127 Wellston Drive), irrigation valves were causing uneven ground in an active play area of the softball field. City staff relocated the valves to an outer area, giving players a much smoother and more level surface for play. At Valencia Heritage Park (24155 Newhall Ranch Road), both of the existing fields were replaced with a new hybrid Bermuda grass sod, which will greatly increase the quality of play.
Due to the ongoing construction of the Central Park Buildout, the 9-hole south disc golf course required removal and relocation. Now, a new 18-hole disc golf course at Central Park (27150 Bouquet Canyon Road) was redesigned with input from the community and now resides on the north end of the park. This recreational course has fun and challenging elements for all skill levels, and features elevated tee pads and basket locations, island holes and unique terrain, just to name a few. Discs are available for use in the Adult Sports office and play is free for the public, with no reservations required.
National Disc Golf Day was on Saturday, August 5 and residents got the chance to try out their skills on the new course. Family and friends came to Central Park to enjoy a morning filled with music, games and prizes. It was an excellent opportunity to experience the sport of disc golf, for beginners and long-time players alike. Disc golf has always been a popular activity at Central Park and it is exciting to see this new course being enjoyed by our residents.
It brings me great joy that our community continues to utilize and take advantage of all the incredible amenities our parks have to offer. For a full list of these amenities and more, please visit santa-clarita.com/Parks.
Ken Striplin is the City Manager for the City of Santa Clarita and can be reached at kstriplin@santaclarita.gov.
