New Hyde Park’s swimming pool is getting a water slide after all.
After pleas from residents, the Town of North Hempstead decided to put the slide back to its multimillion-dollar plan to renovate the aging Clinton G. Martin Park pool.
The slide will now empty into a separate basin next to the kiddie pool rather than the main pool, the town announced Tuesday. That means the renovated kiddie pool will be closer to its current size at 5,000 square feet instead of the planned 9,000 square feet.
“People who wanted the slide are so pleased, and I think those who were concerned about the slide look at this as a good compromise,” Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth said in an interview.
The town, which runs the pool through the Clinton G. Martin Park District, removed the water slide from its original $15 million plan for the pool after a survey found most residents did not want one. Officials presented a revised $13.6 million plan to residents last month.
Town officials and a committee of residents planning the renovation decided to restore the slide after several young parents said it would attract more young families with preteen and teenage children, Bosworth said.
An online petition pushing for a slide got 348 signatures in about a week.
The separate basin assuages older residents’ worries that the slide would take up too much space and disturb lap swimmers and other adults, said Marianna Wohlgemuth, a New Hyde Park civic activist and member of the planning committee.
“I have not heard one objection,” Wohlgemuth said. “And we had several seniors on the committee who represented the seniors, and not one of them complained about the addition of the pool, the slide.”
At $200,000, the slide and basin will add to the project cost, Bosworth said, but slimming down the kiddie pool may save some money.
That’s well worth the increase in membership the slide will likely bring, said Robert Spina, a New Hyde Park resident who started the online petition.
He said it could draw the many New Hyde Park families who go to other pools with more amenities.
“There’s not a lot for kids to do at the pool right now,” Spina said. They can go up the diving boards if they’re comfortable, and there’s no real activities for them do to except go into the water. So the slide would give them something to look forward to.”
Memberships currently fund about a third of the park district’s $1 million budget.
Bill Cutrone, president of New Hyde Park’s Lakeville Estates Civic Association, said he favors the new slide plan but is skeptical it will draw many increasingly busy young families. He pointed to a Garden City News article saying Garden City’s pool membership revenue fell $60,000 short of its target for this summer.
“People are doing so many other things that they don’t have time to sign up for a pool if they’re not going to use it,” Cutrone said.
The project will also resurface the pool deck, add spray features and shading structures, renovate the locker rooms, resurface the park’s tennis courts and overhaul the pool’s aging infrastructure.
The town-operated park district would borrow up to $12.89 million to fund the project and raise property taxes on the district’s 12,877 properties to pay the debt. Taxes would rise to $98.88 from $38.39 for a $412,400 home, the median property value in the district covering North New Hyde Park, the Village of New Hyde Park, Garden City Park, Herricks and Searingtown.
The town is working to finalize designs and plans to solicit bids for the project in March, Bosworth said. Construction would start in June 2017 and take about a year, meaning the pool will be closed next summer. Town officials say it would have to close permanently if it is not fixed.
Residents remain insistent that the renovation be completed on time so the pool is not closed any longer, Wohlgemuth said. But the project will leave “a beautiful pool when it’s all said and done,” she said.
