Helicopter Playground

Helicopter Park - Ball Diamond (WHL500) Project located at 611 27 ST NW

 

Project Scope

• The investment has been made to benefit the sport of baseball and the overall community. The project included installing dug outs and outfield fence on the current outfield boundary. There are no lights or scoreboard being installed with this project.
 

• As with many of the projects where The City of Calgary in involved, whether we are the lead, partnering or supporting, there are many tools we use to inform our decision making on construction projects at The City. These factors include budget, best way to operate and manage a park space, public engagement and most importantly, public safety within the site. For this upgrade project, where the use of the space and the footprint of the site are not changing, engagement with the community is not required according to The City’s Engage Policy.

• The formal classification is a Class D Baseball Diamond (B1WHL12), this site is specifically for children to play baseball. This upgrade provides an important service to children and youth in the community and serves as a barrier to improve safety within the park for other users and nearby playground. This project does not impact or limit the use for other greenspaces in the park.

• Safety is a top priority for park sites. In baseball diamonds where fences and other infrastructure is not unavailable or installed, The City ensures that only certain age groups are using those fields and/or other adjoining fields that could be impacted are not able to be booked at the same time.

• To improve amenities, The City has partnered with sports leagues to install this type of upgraded infrastructure allowing for enhanced infrastructure with no additional cost to The City while creating safer sport fields for communities and sport groups that use them. This kind of partnership does not result in exclusive use and benefits not just the wider baseball community and other groups who want to book this space but other users of the green space.

As for other Class D baseball diamonds with fences and dugouts, there are several sites with similar type sites, including Richmond Green, Forest Lawn, Rundlawn, Inland, Killarney and Crowfoot. In addition, there are other organizations similar to Foothills Little League, who have been involved in upgrading their ball diamonds while still keeping the Class D classification.

• The funds that were raised by the Foothills Little League for this project were done through numerous hours of internal fundraising and applying for grants. The league brought this project forward to The City for the following reasons:

o This ball field has been used by Foothills Little League for over 20 years - the fencing will help to protect young children watching the games and young players from being struck by a foul ball. It will also help prevent kids from running out on to the street to collect overthrown balls.

o The fencing also protects other people using the park from being hit by a ball, creating a barrier between our permitted area and the open park where kids play soccer, football and exercise classes that take place in the open park area. Young children will often wander onto the field of play.

o The project helps to improve the playing experience for their 565 players and encourages more young children to engage in outdoor activities. Feedback on the project has been positive from players and parents, and they are very excited to be able to play on this ball diamond next year.

o There is a large portion of the league’s players that reside in the community of West Hillhurst and out of the 30 communities that are within their boundaries of the league, West Hillhurst have the most kids.

• With this being a newer partnership framework, The City is still monitoring and update processes based on community feedback. We will continue to look for ways to enhance our communication with the community.