Kenmount Terrace residents hoping promised park coming soon, 2 years after plans completed

People in the Kenmount Terrace subdivision ofSt. John's say they've been waiting years for the city to build a community centre and park amongst the lines of homes in the neighbourhood.

Resident John FitzGerald volunteered to be on a committee to work on a plan for the promised park in his neighbourhood.

"Everything more or less ground to a halt almost two years ago," FitzGerald told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show Thursday.

"Then, 'pop,' we got a note the end of January that said 'come to a session and see the plans.' Well we've seen the plans."

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FitzGerald said "there was a great rush" at the time the plans came together two years ago, with a number of public information sessions.But apart from some excavation work on land off Messenger Drive in 2015, nothing has been done since.

Now the city is holding another event Thursday nightto show the design for the park, and a city spokesperson said the tender for construction will go out this spring with construction starting this year.

FitzGerald said the thousands of people who live in Kenmount Terrace are hoping the city is finally going to follow through with that development work, as "it's desperately needed."

• Kenmount Terrace residents feeling 'betrayed' by city

FitzGerald said people in Kenmount Terrace have been asking for trails, boardwalks, crosswalks even a sidewalk on a stretch of busy Kenmount Road for years, to no avail.

"What [KenmountTerrace]turned out to be, clearly, was a lunge for developers and a money making spree at the height of the boom. But there was very little city planning that went into this."

"It's just not acceptable to let this hang for so long," he said. "We were hoping to be in the park this summer."

Ward 4Coun.SheilaghO'Leary said $10 million in total has been allocated for the project, and she's been told it's following a standard timeline.

"When I talked to [the city planning department] they said this is actually a very standard period of time," because of the steps involved in properly planning a project like this, said O'Leary.

She said she's hoping trails could be part of a second phase of development down the road.