 | | | A map of the Moraga Commons Park Master Plan - existing conditions. Provided by RHAA Landscape Architects | | | | | | The Parks and recreation department is preparing a master plan for Moraga Commons Park.
 In the words of the department director Jay Ingram, the purpose is to select, with the community, projects that will define the park's usage for the next 10 years. With the help of consultant RHAA Landscape Architects, the stakeholder outreach has started, sketching broad outlines and raising some questions. The objective is that the public will be asked to contribute ideas after the summer and the town council will receive the plan in November.
Doug Nelson from RHAA has been meeting with the Park Foundation, the Bocce Ball Club, the Junior Women's Club and the parks and recreation commission. He says that those groups consistently stated that the park is beautiful as it is, and whatever changes are made, they want to make sure it will stay that way.
However, some issues have also been raised. First of all is parking. The commissioners agreed when they discussed the topic last month that parking is challenging, but that since the park is surrounded by development on all sides there was no easy solution. Nelson said that his study will look at increasing parking spaces, but that there will be trade-offs. The commissioners proposed to look at the new pocket park that will be available across from the Commons along Moraga Road and discussed the possibility of adding parking there.
After some initial support they decided that encouraging people to park there, when the pedestrian path will not secured by an overhead roadway, was not a good recommendation.
Nelson listed other requests, such as to provide better lighting for evening events, to add an indoor event space, to get the two existing playgrounds closer to one another and to add more bocce ball courts.
Commissioner Carman noted that this topic of adding bocce ball courts has been continually surfacing for at least eight years but never seems to get resolved. The game is very popular in Moraga, with many of the players being seniors, but not all. Moraga would need two more courts to be able to be on par with other regional leagues and be part of tournaments.
Besides the question of funding - probably over $70,000 to build two courts - one challenge is the conflict between bocce and the nine-hole Frisbee golf course. Ingram noted that the golf course is highly used and that he would not recommend abandoning the use.
Commissioners remarked that the back of the park, a.k.a. the back 40, is mostly unused if not for two holes of the Frisbee golf course. Commission chair Jeanette Fritzky noted that when she recently visited the park, over 10 people were playing the Frisbee course and about the same amount of youth were on their phone playing Pokemon Go. She noted that this may be a fad, but it was nonetheless a new use of the park.
Ingram added to the list of projects the recent council's request to look into placing the all-access playground that the Rotary Club has pledged to give the town at the Commons. RHAA will also be looking into that.
Public outreach meetings will be announced in the coming weeks to get the largest community input on the topic.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA