Magnolia Springs moves ahead with waterfront park plans

http://blog.al.com/live/2012/05/magn...s_ahead_w.html

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[size=14pt]Magnolia Springs moves ahead with waterfront park plans[/size]
Published: Sunday, May 13, 2012, 5:07 AM
By Guy Busby Press-Register Press-Register

[img width=380 height=285]http://media.al.com/live/photo/11002912-large.jpg[/img]
[size=6pt]Trees and an old boat house line the Magnolia River where a Magnolia Springs town park is planned. (Press-Register file photo)[/size]

Town representatives will meet Monday with state and federal environmental officials to look over the site for a proposed public waterfront park on the Magnolia River.

Magnolia Landing will include a pier and riverfront walkway on the water just west of the Baldwin County 49 bridge, Mayor Charles Houser said.

“There’s going to be an elevated walkway through the wetlands leading to an observation deck and pier on the river,” Houser said. “It’s going to be a great project.”

Houser said the park would be named Magnolia Landing. The facility would be on the site where riverboats docked to unload freight and passengers in the community in the 19th century.

On Monday, officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alabama Department of Environmental Management will be on the site to look over plans for the project, Councilman Brett Gaar, chairman of the town Public Works Committee, said at the May work session.

Houser said money from BP that was intended for protection from the oil spill in 2010 should pay the cost of the work, if the plan is approved by state officials.

The town, however, is still working on ways to adapt the plan to new environmental regulations for waterfront construction in the Weeks Bay area, Gaar said.

The regulations restrict pier widths to 5 feet and require decking to be at least 5 feet above the high tide line.

Houser said a public pier built to those specifications could be too narrow for access by handicapped visitors. If boards are placed on the sides to keep wheelchairs from rolling off, the 60-inch maximum width would be reduced by several inches.

A wheelchair requires about 30 inches of space, meaning that two handicapped visitors could not pass each other on the pier, the mayor said.

Gaar said some aspects of the plan have already been changed to meet the new guidelines. He said the observation deck at the end of the pier was reduced to 10 feet by 10 feet, the maximum size allowed under the regulations.

The new regulations also require that boards in a pier be at least three-quarters of an inch apart, to allow sunlight to reach wetland vegetation under the walkway.

Another new restriction bans bulkheads along river banks.

The regulations apply to all shorelines on Fish River south of Baldwin County 32, on the Magnolia River west of Baldwin County 49, including the proposed park site, and all of Weeks Bay, Councilman Rick Odess said.

Councilman Ken Underwood said he worried that the rules could create a safety hazard in some situations. A platform 5 feet above the high tide mark could be 7 feet from the surface at low tide. “You could have kids jumping off something 7 feet into 3 feet of water,” he said.

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Sounds like they have some hurdles still ahead of them. Also it sounds as if the pier (if they can build it) will be higher than the bridge is!

Hard to believe that the folks who write the environmental regulations don't coordinate with the disability regulations. No, scratch that, it is not too hard to believe. :puke: