River Heights Park is not your typical park; it has no playground, picnic tables or ball fields.
The 7.5-acre park is pretty much just grass, trees and a looping half-mile dirt trail.
And that’s just fine with neighbors.
“The dog walkers go there every day,” Al Meyman said Tuesday outside his home, across the street from the park.
Meyman and his wife, Karen, are leading a charge against an idea floating around city hall: Sell all or part of the park for single-family homes.
The couple has collected 140 signatures from residents who live nearby who oppose the idea.
“River Heights Park was dedicated green space when the area was developed and is part of the character of River Heights Way,” a neighborhood petition reads. “We do not want any part of our neighborhood park to be sold.”
On Wednesday, the city’s parks and recreation advisory commission will hold a public hearing on the matter and make a recommendation to the city council.
“Hopefully they listen to the neighbors,” Al Meyman, 63, said of city officials.
Selling part of the park could help the city facilitate a land transaction for a third fire station, City Administrator Joe Lynch said Tuesday.
The city is negotiating with a resident who owns property at 9250 Courthouse Blvd. Court, the city’s preferred location for a fire station, he said.
As part of a deal, the city would buy the property and sell a 2.5 acre lot in the park to the property owner, he said. The parkland had previously been platted as three 2.5 acre lots for a development that did not happen. The 2017 taxable assessed value for each lot is $157,000.
Meanwhile, proceeds from a sale of one or both of the other park lots would go to the city’s park acquisition and development fund.
River Heights Park is among 10 city-owned properties the city council deemed “excess” land in 2016, Lynch said. Two additional parks — Marcott Woods, which is 14 acres, and Dehrer, 5.5 acres — also are on the list.
The city this month sold the first property on the list — a former drainage and utility easement at 68th Street and Clayton Avenue.
Eric Carlson, the city’s parks and recreation director, said the last time the city “disposed” of parkland was in 2009, when Cameron Warehouse Liquors moved to a 1.3-acre park across the street as part of reconstruction and widening of Concord Boulevard.
The Meymans, who have lived along River Heights Way the past 32 years, said this is their second go-round in trying to keep their park away from developers. The parks and recreation advisory commission discussed selling the park back in 1995, prompting the couple to circulate their first petition.
“We had many of the same signatures that we do now,” Al Meyman said.