Seeking Silverdale and Central Kitsap

You’ll have a chance Thursday night to participate in the planning process for the new Central Kitsap Heritage Park.

It’s not every day, or every year, or even every decade that a community has a chance to create a major park. In this case, the park will be about 1,000 acres in west Central Kitsap between Newberry Hill Road and Seabeck Highway. For more details on the park, check this previous blog entry.

Now that the county has secured the land for the park, it’s time to start planning how the park will be developed. Thursday’s meeting is part of a rare opportunity to be part of the creation of a large park that will serve the public for many years in the future. Hope you all make maximum use of this opportunity and make your voice heard on the park’s future.

— Jeff

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It appears the reality of a heritage park for Central Kitsap is coming closer.

Brynn Grimley’s story on kitsapsun.com, focuses on some controversy over the creation of mountain bike trails without permit on state Department of Natural Resources land that will soon be transferred to Kitsap County to allow the creation of a 1,000-acre park in west Central Kitsap, between Newberry Hill Road and Seabeck Highway.

The county board of commissioners several years ago agreed to create large heritage parks, one in each of the three county commissioner districts, to expand parks and recreational opportunities in Kitsap. The CK heritage park, in one form or another, has been talked about since the planning of Klahowya Secondary School, when planners first conceived of the idea of swapping land with DNR to create a large forested park near the school site. Although the Newberry Hill Heritage Park is listed on the county’s parks web site, little information is offered and there is not even a map on the site showing the exact location. And, with county resources what they are, it’s going to be a long time before the park is fully developed.

There is a stewardship committee established for the park, but no information about the membership of the committee or how to contact them on the county web site.

This is a long-term vision for the county … but an important one. The heritage parks program has put aside significant parcels of land in all three regions of the county for future public use. Once the county and the state can finalize the land swap that will result in the Newberry Hill Heritage Park expanding from 250 acres to 1,000 acres, a volunteer corps could begin working to create recreational opportunities in the park based on a park plan developed and approved by the county. There may not be much money in county coffers, or even much grant money available in this time of economic hardship, but having the final boundaries of the park would allow Central Kitsap residents to launch a volunteer effort to begin the work that will need to be done to make park trails and make them accessible to the public.

— Jeff

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