Keene council OKs designing Wheelock campsite for dog park, disc golf

Apr. 22—The Keene City Council appointed an ad hoc committee on housing stability Thursday, while also voting to pursue a design and feasibility project for a dog park and disc-golf course at the former Wheelock campground.

The recreational site, which closed to camping in 2018, has been pursued by area residents as a location for dogs and disc golf, but in recent weeks has also been eyed as a potential camping area for people experiencing homelessness.

A vote by the council's Finance, Organization and Personnel Committee last week focused on those earlier ideas. The five members unanimously recommended spending nearly $30,000 to hire a company to produce design and feasibility plans for both options even as City Manager Elizabeth Dragon reminded them of the proposal related to homelessness.

During last week's committee meeting, Keene Parks, Recreation and Facilities Director Andy Bohannon said two groups, one advocating for a dog park and the other for a disc-golf course, approached the city council last October seeking to use the former campground off Park Avenue.

A group of local residents has long sought a home for a dog park, and set its sights on the former Wheelock Park Campground after other locations didn't pan out.

Meanwhile, members of the Keene Disc Golf Club have said the former campground would be a good site for a second disc-golf course that would be more user-friendly than the organization's existing course at Otter Brook State Park. Disc golf is a game where a plastic disc is thrown into a series of metal baskets in an outdoor course.

Hiring the Bedford-based consulting firm Dubois & King to produce conceptual designs would give both groups the opportunity for public input, Bohannon told the committee.

But Councilor Robert Williams on Thursday suggested holding off on voting for the design project to give the new housing stability committee time to consider whether there is interest in resuming camping there.

The housing committee, which will have its first meeting on May 4 and will meet every first Wednesday of the month after that, is tasked with evaluating strategies and making recommendations to improve housing stability in Keene.

Mayor George Hansel will chair the group. Councilor Bryan Lake will also sit on the panel, along with community members Joshua Meehan, executive director of Keene Housing; Jennifer Alexander, supplemental learning manager for Keene Community Education; Doug Iosue, superintendent of the Cheshire County Department of Corrections; Craig Henderson, assistant director of homeless services at Southwestern Community Services; Natalie Darcy, the city's human services manager; Stephen Bragdon, an attorney and board member for the Keene Downtown Housing Corp.; Jennifer Seher, director of program development for the New Hampshire Care Collaborative; and Stacie Pickford, a graduated of the N.H. Coalition to End Homelessness' Granite Leaders Program and a transitional housing landlord.

Last month, Williams, Lake and Councilor Catherine Workman wrote a letter to the council on the heels of people living behind a Keene shopping plaza being told by property owners and the city to leave. The letter included a series of recommendations, including the possibility of a designated camping area in Keene, to reduce "harms associated with houselessness."

The next week dozens turned out to a city council meeting to call for action on homelessness, and several raised the possibility of using the Wheelock site as an area for people to camp.

"There is still a need for camping in Keene as was pretty strongly expressed in this room not too long ago," Williams said on Thursday. "Reopening Wheelock [campground] is one of the options that's been mentioned."

He said this isn't his first choice for a place for people experiencing homelessness to camp and that he is in favor of a dog park as well but thinks the housing issue needs to be considered.

Councilor Kris Roberts noted that community groups have looked for years for a site for a dog park and raised a significant sum of money to establish one in Keene.

"The people who came back here in 2008, 2009 to raise the money got a commitment from the city that we would be supportive and we would work for them," Roberts said. "So now we're looking almost 13 to 14 years and we're finally coming up with a possibility on where it can go."

He also said one of the reasons the campground was closed in the first place is people were living there during the summer to save money so they could put down a security deposit on a home in the winter, when it's cold.

"We realized that wasn't necessarily workable with a number of different liabilities," Roberts said.

Councilor Philip Jones said he supports the design and feasibility project but added that homelessness is "that elephant in the room that we still need to talk about."

"Somewhere down the line that has got to be discussed," he said.

A motion to send the dog park and disc-golf course proposal back to the Finance, Organization and Personnel Committee failed with only Williams and Workman voting in favor. The vote to approve the proposal then passed unanimously.

In other business, the council on Thursday unanimously approved requests to use city property for the Pumpkin Festival and Keene's inaugural Pride festival. The Pride festival is slotted for Sept. 11-18, with the final day being a block-party-esque event. It will be the first large-scale celebration of its kind in Keene.

The Pumpkin Festival is set for Oct. 22.

Ryan Spencer can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1412, or rspencer@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @rspencerKS