‘Dirt path with dead plants’: Residents criticize park’s addition

In 2019, the city of Henderson held a meeting for residents living near Sonata Park to gauge what the city should do with 10 acres of empty lot right next to the park.

Representatives from Henderson’s parks and recreation department gave the residents two options to fill the space: a dog park or a multi-use field.

Votes were cast by neighbors both in the meeting and online and construction on Sonata Park’s extension was completed in 2021. But the new addition the city ultimately added was a desert walking path, not a dog park or field.

Now, residents of the surrounding Seven Hills neighborhood are criticizing the city’s choice, and some questioned why the city abandoned the options presented to them in 2019.

“Honestly, a dirt path with dead plants is not the same as a well-used park,” resident Stephanie Clark said of the new walking path.

‘A no-win situation’

Ferguson said the city elected to go with a different project for Sonata Phase II instead of the options given to neighbors because of concerns about the project dividing the neighborhood. She said the vote totals were close, and both sides of the vote had vocal opposition from residents.

“It would have been pitting neighbor against neighbor, and it seemed like if we were to pick one it would have been a no-win situation, and that’s why we went a different direction,” Ferguson said.

The field option ultimately garnered 48 percent of votes, with dog park netting 44 percent and the option for neither receiving 8 percent.

But according to records of feedback obtained from the city of Henderson, the dog park proposal faced the most backlash by a significant margin.

Of the 483 votes, 193 entries were submitted with a comment, and 81 of those comments explicitly criticized one or more of the options given by the city.

From those negative comments, 59 of them criticized the dog park option, 13 of them criticized both the dog park and the multi-use field and nine comments just criticized the field option.

When asked where was most of the backlash against the multi-use field, Ferguson said there was passion against the multi-use field at the in-person meeting, particularly about traffic and noise concerns with the option.

The recorded summary of the in-person meeting notes that there were more concerns about parking related to the field option. Noise complaints were a frequent criticism in the feedback regarding the dog park option, not the multi-use field.

Ferguson said there were calls to the city that complained about both park options presented, which Clark said she also heard about. The city did not provide records of these calls with other records of feedback for the project.

Ferguson also mentioned that the path conserves more water than the two previous options.

‘Never reached back out again’

Parks and Recreation Director Shari Ferguson said the city posted the new plans online and emailed the residents who took a survey after the park’s vote, but chose not to hold another meeting about the Sonata Park’s new direction.

“We just weren’t able to do (another in-person meeting) at the time, we wanted to get something done and get something going for that area,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson said the feedback on the new desert path has been mostly positive. The only negative feedback she mentioned about the path was that many of the plants died, but the city has partnered with local Boy Scouts to replace them.

Ferguson said the best way for residents to give feedback to the city is through the Contact Henderson online portal.

But neighbors criticized the city’s lack of communication about the change of plans.

“They did something completely different and never reached back out again,” resident Greg Moody said.

Contact Mark Credico at mcredico@reviewjournal.com. Follow @writermark2 on Instagram.