Residents voice input on town’s future

The town of Windermere hosted a Town Square Design Charrette Oct. 28 at Town Hall where residents participated in an open discussion to provide input on potential improvements to Town Square Park. 

A design charrette is an assembly of stakeholders who work together in a condensed session to strive toward a common design solution. Ideas are explored through collaboration via both writing and sketched concepts to discover and further diverse design ideas. 

The meeting kicked off with an introduction from Town Planner Brad Cornelius, of Wade Trim, followed by a design team presentation from Wade Trim, charrette breakout sessions with resident involvement and concept prioritization discussions.

“A few months ago, the Town Council approved the work assignment of us coming up with a master plan for Town Square, which will go through a public process — which is what we’re doing tonight — and then ultimately the plan would come back to the Town Council for their consideration and possible approval,” Cornelius said. “What that would do for the town and its future is give a blueprint and a guideline for what would happen here. What we’re not talking about is Town Hall and what may happen to it, because it’s not part of our project. Our project is the area around Town Hall.”

PROJECT ANALYSIS

Christopher Thompson, landscape architect with Wade Trim, led the project presentation. 

The goals and scope of the project include analyzing the existing conditions and uses of Town Square, facilitating an open discussion for future planning efforts, presenting input to the Town Council at a workshop, preparing several concepts based on the stakeholder input, and presenting concepts to the Town Council. 

Thompson discussed what the town already knows about the area, which includes site analysis, current uses and planned improvements. 

Current uses of the area include the Friday farmers market, fourth Friday food trucks, the Wine & Dine, Run Among the Lakes, Halloween Holiday Hoopla, art fair, centennial events, PetFest and the back-to-school celebration. 

Planned improvements for the area that already are taking place include parking access from East Sixth Avenue and the East Sixth Avenue roundabout improvements. 

RESIDENT FEEDBACK

Following the presentation, residents split into small groups to have discussion. The groups first asked each other about their favorite and least favorite part about Town Square as it currently is, followed by what kind of elements they would like to see in Town Square.

Residents’ favorite present elements of the area included the tree canopy and open green space. Their least favorite elements included the food truck events, as well as the lack of parking for the number of people who visit the town, traffic in the area, lack of shade and the lack of public restrooms. 

“We want open space,” said Windermere resident Theresa Schretzmann-Myers of her group’s thoughts. “We want to replant the tree canopy back in this area, as well as tougher native grasses that can handle traffic and add some benches in the shaded areas. We want to keep the basketball courts. We feel like those are utilized by the youth in the town. We want to repurpose the Cal Palmer building as a museum or shop and move the storage that’s being used there now somewhere else close by. We also want to restore the Town Hall building here. The roof and the foundation desperately need help, and the porch needs to be rebuilt. No bathrooms added to the historic Town Hall, because it’s a National Register historic site. We want the bathrooms to be off near the drain field somewhere near the library.”

Although all residents in attendance agreed on the restrooms and the green space, there were mixed opinions on the food trucks in town. Some residents voiced displeasure with the amount of traffic and outside residents the events bring to town, while others said they enjoy having the food trucks in the community.

“I think if you’re going to have events here, you just have got to have restrooms,” another resident said. “We moved here in 2020, and honestly one of the things that brought us here was the food trucks. We love seeing all the children and the families out at these events. This is an increasingly younger community, and there isn’t an awful lot being constructed in this area to actually bring people together outside of their homes.”

For those who were unable to attend the in-person meeting but wish to provide feedback, an online survey is available on the town’s website.

The findings from the charrette and the online survey next will be presented at a future Town Council workshop.