FAQs - Updated September 2024

City of Eugene Parks and Open Space staff began a public process for renovation of Scobert Gardens Park in the fall of 2017. Staff capacity issues and the Covid pandemic delayed project progress until early 2023 when planning efforts restarted with the assistance of landscape architecture consultants from the Eugene office of Cameron McCarthy.

The City hosted an initial project meeting with the community in May of 2023 followed by a park tour and discussion in June of 2023. In an initial survey, 98 people shared their hopes for as well as concerns about the renovation of the park. Using this information, planners developed two different park designs for the community’s consideration.

The City hosted a second public meeting in September of 2023 to share the designs and garner community feedback and discussion. An additional option, developed independently by neighbors, was also shared at the second public meeting. In the second survey, 58 people responded to the two designs. These responses, along with some ideas in the neighbor-generated plan, were incorporated into the third design and survey in June of 2024.

The third design was available for public comment through mid-August of 2024 and the City received over 120 responses to the online survey, around 40 responses to an on-site survey associated with a self-tour, and several emails from neighbors sharing their thoughts and opinions on the design. Cameron McCarthy’s work concluded at the end of this phase of design, and the City is now proceeding with the completion of the design process.

Parks Planning staff is now working on a 4th design proposal which will be shared with neighbors later in the fall of 2024. In the meantime, the results of both the on-line and the on-site self-tour surveys will be posted the week of September 16, 2024.

• The park consistently feels unsafe and unwelcoming. Illicit activities occurring during the day and often throughout the night discourage legitimate park use by Whiteaker neighbors and visitors. This has been a decades-long problem and while there have been numerous attempts at reclaiming the park, these difficult problems persist today. These activities adversely affect the daily lives and property of neighbors immediately abutting the park site. Children and families who desire to use the park are particularly negatively impacted as the playground structure is continuously mis-used as a shelter for drug use and overnight camping. They also negatively affect the safety of Parks staff working to maintain the park as a safe and welcoming space. And despite regular and additional daily maintenance and security visits and continuous expenditures on routine repairs, the park remains underused and unsafe for many. 
• The lack of paved walks makes most of the park inaccessible to mobility-impaired visitors. The park has limited paving at the entrances and a sidewalk along the street frontage but otherwise has no paved or accessible routes upon which to walk or wheel. As such, only fully able-bodied visitors can fully experience the park.
• The park amenities that remain are in significant disrepair. In the name of preventing illicit activities, all park furniture and low-level vegetation has been progressively removed over time by Parks staff. The playground is out of date, ageing and chronically misused as shelter by people experiencing homelessness. Park signage, lighting, fencing and other amenities are aging and need renovation or replacement.

No. The third design garnered significant feedback, and the City remains committed to development of a design that feels welcoming and safe for all visitors. While community members have occasionally provided conflicting feedback based upon their lived experience, values, and understandings, City staff are working hard to solve problems in both the short and the long term for Scobert Gardens Park. A fourth concept design will be shared with neighbors later this fall.

Parks and Open Space staff typically plan for a three-step process to garner stakeholder feedback and propose designs that respond to what we’re hearing. Stakeholders include park neighbors and advocates, park users, park partners, park operations staff and park ambassadors. 

The three steps are as follows:

1. Information gathering – Gather existing conditions, identify problems, needed improvements, and park use patterns.
2. Development of two or more design proposals and feedback – Design proposals to address information gathered in Step 1 and gather stakeholder feedback on these proposals.
3. Consolidation of information from Step 2 into one “final” design proposal and feedback – Make design adjustments per design feedback and then share the completed design with the public. 

In some cases, additional design work is required to consider feedback about the third design. For the Scobert Gardens Park process, we’ve removed references to the “final” design in our current publications so we can continue the design process as necessary.

• Help Scobert Gardens feel safer, more welcoming and comfortable for all visitors.
• Renovate the playground and keep it closer to the front of the park.
• Make the playground bigger with more activities and assure shade over it.
• Keep the trees and increase shade.
• Reduce the amount of concrete in the design.
• Make the park more accessible for all users and a windy path design is preferred.
• Include a stage and small plaza area for more event programming in the park.
• Add site furniture throughout the park.
• Open up more of the park to public use.
• Re-use the basalt columns currently at the park entry.
• Add a public restroom.

• Keep the existing fencing where it is currently located along the south side of the park. See FAQ #8 for more information on this.
• Open the “dogleg area” to a fully publicly accessible community garden. See FAQ #9 for more information on this.
• Inclusion of a native plant garden and interpretive signs in the existing play area space. Survey responses support moving the playground to the front of the park, so this area will likely be re-used for the renovation of the playground. In addition, park operations staff do not have the capacity to maintain specialty gardens in neighborhood parks so planning staff are reluctant to include this type of feature knowing that it will likely fail over time.

Installation of a fence along the West 4th Avenue frontage of Scobert Gardens Park is not required but has been proposed as it would significantly improve safety for park visitors and operations staff at Scobert Gardens Park.

While Eugene’s parks have traditionally not been fenced, the ability for Parks to close gates at Scobert Gardens overnight would reduce the instances of overnight illicit activities, consistent vandalism to park property, behavioral impacts to adjacent property owners and misuse of park amenities. The City cannot provide the personnel required to enforce park rules overnight throughout the year and it is more cost effective to construct a fence with one-time dollars than to provide consistent ongoing operational dollars. By reducing the significant operational time and dollars spent on security and vandalism, more resources can be directed to the maintenance and upkeep of the park.

All parks in Eugene close at 11:00 p.m. nightly, so this would not be a change in park rules or policy. Park fencing would allow for the park to be cleared prior to gate closure each evening. It would also allow for a much easier reset of the park each morning by operations staff due to a reduction in the amount of litter and vandalism to be addressed.

The fencing proposal shown includes wide entry gateways on both the east and west sides of the park with a large roller gate opening in the middle for larger events or other activations. Ideally, the fence creates a clear separation of street and park spaces while maintaining visual transparency and a sense of entry into a special green space in the heart of the Whiteaker.

The fence at the south end of the park currently limits access to about 1/2 of the entire park property and was installed in 1998 to create a buffer between the park and the neighboring properties to the south. Neighbors on West 5th Avenue, whose back gardens abut park property, were consistently experiencing vandalism, theft, extreme noise and more from illicit activities originating in the park. The installation of the fence along the alignment of the original park path closed off access to a large area of the park but also significantly improved day-to-day conditions for adjacent neighbors.

Parks staff have been working with these neighbors to evaluate the need for and location of the fence. This fence remains a vital buffer for the neighbors and will be retained. It may, however, change location to allow for more of the park to be open and available for public use. A revised location is shown in the current design proposal.

The “dogleg area,” as it’s called, refers to the southwest corner of the park which has low visibility and has been fenced off from public use due to illicit activities for many years. This space was originally envisioned as an open park space then managed as a community garden by a Eugene-based non-profit organization. When the community garden partnership ended, the area became a haven for negative behaviors, significantly impacting adjacent park neighbors, and was fenced off.

In 2021, the City entered into a park adoption agreement with neighboring property owners to allow them to assist in the maintenance and operation of the dogleg area. The partnership has resulted in the activation of the space as neighbors have invested in keeping the vegetation in check and constructing raised beds for vegetable gardening.

We have heard from the community that they desire a more public-facing partnership for this area. The City is committed to this goal while preserving the partnership with neighbors and plans to add a third non-profit partner to the park adoption agreement. The non-profit partner will be one that programmatically benefits underrepresented communities in Eugene and may change from year to year depending on their ability to program the site.

A restroom is currently proposed immediately outside of the park in the West 4th Avenue right-of-way. The construction of the restroom will somewhat depend upon the ability of Parks staff to maintain the restroom as clean and safe for public use into the future. Parks and Open Space is exploring the potential of a community partnership to assist with making this facility successful over time.

City staff understand the importance of shade and cooling that public parks can provide on extremely hot days. Parks increasingly have a role in mitigating the negative effects of climate change and we take this responsibility seriously. 

Additional tree plantings will be included in the next design revision in balance with maintaining some sunny areas in the park. In addition, as an agency, we are beginning to incorporate shade structures into our new and renovated playgrounds and may do so at Scobert Gardens Park.

Yes, more trees can be added to the design. Shrub beds have been historically difficult to manage and maintain due to regular camping and illicit use, but this doesn’t rule out select application of shrub or perennial planting as part of the park improvements.

Yes! Staff is excited to explore opportunities for this type of collaboration and we’ll dive into those details and ideas once we’ve landed on a site design.

On this project page, you can find the results of the first two surveys, previous design ideas, and take the survey for the most recent design proposal.

• Survey #1 Report
• Survey #2 Report
• Design Proposal #3 Images
• Survey #3 Report
• On-site Self Tour Questionaire Report

Project Manager: Emily Proudfoot, Principal Landscape Architect

Asst. Project Manager: Rex Redmon, Landscape Designer