Seating
guidelines for design of playgrounds, water features, and shade provision. Both guides can be valuable resources for the Town. Lighting At this latitude, winter days can be fully dark by 5:00 pm. In order to encourage use of parks and facilities in winter months, this should be taken into account to ensure selected parks and facilities targeted for winter/shoulder season use are sufficiently lit (e.g., including sport fields/courts, outdoor rinks, etc.). Sustainable lighting options such as LED or solar should be used. A challenge associated with solar lights has been that the lights lack the ability to retain their full intensity for the duration of the night. This may not be an issue for parks and facilities that are officially open/used until 11:00 pm. However, if the purpose of the lights is for safety and they need to remain bright all night, it may be problematic. Solar technology is evolving quickly, and it is now possible to address this issue by setting lighting profiles: pre-set schedules that dictate when the lights operate and the extent of their brightness, and the ability to switch to a motion sensor setting during the least used hours of the night.
Seating should be provided at all parks, in line with the type of use. Picnic tables are sometimes preferred as they allow groups to eat, play games, and converse. If picnic tables are fixed to the ground to prevent theft, they should be placed in a variety of formations to allow smaller and larger groups to sit together as needed. It is occasionally the practice to remove seating and picnic tables during winter months to protect them from the elements, but seating should be selected and placed so that it can be used year-round to allow people to sit and socialize outdoors. As winters become milder due to climate change, the need for all-season seating will be greater as people will walk and gather outdoors more often in the winter months. Recommendations PCT 1. As parks and playgrounds are updated for accessibility, update Town inventories and webpages to include the new information. PCT 2. Provide shelter (in the form of
tree planting) and seating at all parks, that is adequate for the amount and type of use.
PCT 3. Provide lighting during the shoulder seasons and winter months at parks that host activities year-round.
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Town of Tillsonburg | DRAFT Parks and Recreation Master Plan
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