Those who will benefit from Milton’s new active park are invited Jan. 14 to a kick-off engagement event – the first of several opportunities to share their opinions, take in information, and generally be pivotal to the park-making process.

This “open house”-style meeting will run from 6 to 8 p.m. that Tuesday. People can drop in anytime at Milton Municipal Court, which is in the Milton Police building at the City’s Public Safety Complex at 13690 Highway 9. There will be no set presentation; instead, people can circulate around the room contributing ideas to vision boards and talking to project team members.

In addition to athletic fields, the City wants public input as to what else should be at this park in the Deerfield area – including things like a playground, walking trails, gathering spaces, courts, and more.

This will build off feedback the City collected last year before closing on its purchase of 21.37 acres off Deerfield Parkway to transform into an active park. In November, the City Council voted to buy 3.05 additional acres directly south of that property, giving Milton greater flexibility and space to incorporate more infrastructure and amenities.

A few weeks later, the City officially partnered with Lose Design to help drive the creation of a new park in southeastern Milton. This work will culminate in a conceptual design to determine what elements should be included and where to put to them in ways that make the most sense for this space and for our community as a whole. (The subsequent design tasks, like creating construction documents and coming up with detailed cost estimates, will not happen until this phase finishes.) 

Civic engagement is critical to this effort, just as it is with all major City of Milton projects along these lines. Besides in-person events like the one on January 14, people will have chances to share their thoughts and ask questions online. As part of this, the City plans to soon launch an interactive public input site as well as a webpage featuring context and resources related to this project. 

Up-to-date park planning developments will be posted on the latter webpage, as well as via the City’s Facebook account (https://www.facebook.com/thecityofmiltonga/), by email (for those signed up at www.miltonga.gov/emails), and by text (for those who register at www.miltonga.gov/notifications).