Wednesday, Mar. 18, 2009

Residents share park wish lists

CLAYTON — If Ken and April Copel want to take their 3-year-old daughter to the park, they have to travel from their home off Glen Laurel Road to Community Park across town.

Once there, they often have to deal with a crowd.

“She goes to the park and can’t find an empty swing,” Ken Copel said of his wife. “There’s a huge need for this.”

The need, Copel said, is for a park on the east side of town. And that’s exactly what the town is planning: a 60-acre park off Glen Laurel Road that would feature ball fields, a playground, a walking trail and a disc golf course.

The Copels attended a public information session about the park last week. The town could pay for the park with $1.8 million of the $4 million in parks bond, Clayton voters approved last year. It could also use a $475,000 grant from Johnston County.

Clayton needs more parks, said Larry Bailey, the town’s parks and recreation director. Like the Copels, families want more playgrounds, he said. Now, the town has only four: one at Municipal Park, another at All Star Park and two at Clayton Community Park.

“If you go out there on any warm day, even in the winter, they’re packed,” Bailey said.

Clayton residents also asked for walking trails and a dog park. The proposed park off Glen Laurel Road will offer a two-mile walking trail. And a dog park could go across the street or in the disc golf course.

The park would also feature a baseball field, a large athletic field and a smaller soccer field. The workgroup planning the park wants town leaders to spring for synthetic turf for the soccer field, although it’s pricier to start than regular grass.

“One artificial-turf field can do the job of three natural-turf fields,” said Mike Barnes, who represents the

Johnston United Soccer Association on the workgroup.

Grass fields require more maintenance, Barnes said, and they can’t handle as much playing time as synthetic turf.

While town leaders hope a park in east Clayton would address some residents’ needs, Bailey said his department has bigger plans. The town has proposed parks in the Clemmons and Covered Bridge Road areas on the north side of town. It has also proposed a park off South Boling Street to the south and near the interchange of N.C. 42 and the U.S. 70 bypass of Clayton.