Quarry Park plans spark opposition
Development opposition raised as city and tourism organization explore possible recreation uses at west McMinnville site
A controversy is brewing over plans for a little-known park off Northwest Second Street.
Quarry Park, owned by the city of McMinnville, is an undeveloped natural area tucked away (without an address listed) next door to Calvary Chapel, east of Southwest Hill Road.
Ideas have been floated for years (dating back to when the city acquired the land from the state in 1968) about what to put in the park. Now that a plan is moving forward to improve accessibility and trails, a group of neighbors want to keep the park in its current state.
The city’s 20-year Parks, Recreation and Open Space master plan (adopted last year) identifies three projects in the next five years for the park totaling nearly $650,000 in costs. Projects include improved access, a soft surface loop trail and $500,000 to “add a bike skills course/pump track.”
Parks and Recreation Director Susan Muir said developing parks is an important part of creating a network of walkable green space for residents and while Quarry Park is currently listed as undeveloped parkland, the city has long held plans to develop.
“The location of the Quarry property is a component of our parks system and has always been in the city’s parks plans as far back as our records go,” Muir told the News-Register. “I call it our best known non-park, park, because it’s undeveloped but some people in our community know about it and access the property. It truly is an amazing piece of property, and the fact that we can make something amazing out of a former rock quarry is pretty cool.”
Visit McMinnville has been interested in the park for several years after participating in a Travel Oregon program that emphasized recreation options to increase tourism. That program led to a feasibility study and concept design in 2021, according to Visit McMinnville’s Lisa Macy-Baker, who was hired last year in part to pick the project back up.
Visit McMinnville has two grant applications submitted to assist development of the park. The goal is to improve access, add hiking and biking trails and install a natural area playground, according to Macy-Baker.
One grant would pay for cultural resource and accessibility studies and potentially pay for new bilingual signage.
“Those two (studies) would guide final design to help make trails more accessible to all people of various ability levels,” she said.
The other grant would pay for trail construction and a tree assessment, she said.
“Just to understand the health of the current canopy and to know the dangers,” she said.
Visit McMinnville will know results of the applications sometime this spring, according to Macy-Baker.
Muir said partnerships are a key component of parks, and Visit McMinnville was able to help by beginning concept plans, which were taken to a community meeting last October.
Friends of Quarry Park, an opposition group to the park’s development, has organized and held a community meeting in January. The topic has seen increased presence during the public comment portion of city council meetings since, growing to seven speakers against development plans that addressed the dais last week.
The speakers were in support of a seven-page letter submitted to the city arguing against development by the Friends and signed by over 100 residents.
The letter gives a history of the park and discusses project goals stemming from the October community meeting hosted by Macy-Baker and Muir.
“The information we received during that meeting very much portrayed development as a BMX style/mountain biking facility,” the letter states.
The meeting left attendees “feeling ambushed, upset and mistrustful, especially after it was adamantly stated by facilitators that ‘the park will be developed,’” the letter states.
Muir said there was a large turnout for that meeting and “we heard a lot of concerns about developing the park. “
Many of the speakers identified themselves as neighbors of the park. Marianne Brendemuhl said it serves as a purpose as a natural area providing “a needed break from the sounds of the city.”
“Nature parks inside cities are very rare and need to be protected for future generations. A nature park and a BMX park cannot coexist,” Brendmuhl said. “If Quarry Park, as it is today, is destroyed it will take another 50-plus years to create another one.”
The opposition is largely incorrect about plans, according to Macy-Baker. She said a pump track (a bike track designed through rollers and bank turns to allow riders to pump through mostly without pedaling) could be constructed, but not the characterized BMX park.
“I don’t know what they mean by a BMX track, that’s a term that they came up with on their own,” Macy-Baker told the News-Register. “That’s not the intent.”
(A BMX course emphasizes jumps and competition, while a pump track features rolling hills and a continuous loop designed to develop technique and conditioning.)
“We’d love to see some hiking-only trails and a bike trail or bike loop as well.”
The topic hasn’t officially been discussed by city council, and there is no firm timeline for the next steps, according to Muir.
“When cities develop parks these are pretty typical processes, the city will engage with the neighborhood about the development ... and there’s time for them to work together on how the park might ultimately be developed,” she said. “We’re at that step in the process and we’re grateful both the neighbors and Visit McMinnville are at the table to help the city develop that park into an amazing asset for our community.”
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