Levingston Cove Park at Crystal Lake had deteriorated after 20 years of city neglect. The community had asked that the restoration “Keep it simple”, and “Keep it natural”. Unfortunately the city renovation of the Cove that you see here is very high impact construction with hardscape added throughout this small cove. The existing, accessible walk way along the waters edge is destroyed for constructing a cantilever over hang with tons of concrete and steel, drilled steel piles, etc at the former “fishing wall” creating a dark swampy space under the cantilever decking.
The entire Cove was renovated and made accessible in 2000 with ramps, rails and accessible benches. Both previous ramps were ADA compliant, and only the railing needed to be updated. We all agree and very much support Accessibility compliance but we know this could have been accomplished with considerably simpler, naturalistic, cost effective plans.
The cost of the City plan is now more than $2,000,000 (The total cost of the low key naturalistic renovation in 2000 was about $80,000).
This flawed plan was finalized (March, 2019) following a flawed process which featured only one public feedback meeting (May, 2018), the content of which was largely ignored. It was pushed through pro forma committees that also largely ignored public comment on the substantive issues, raised by both the Friends of Levingston Cove and Crystal Lake Conservancy.
Most troubling is that the same design team responsible for this work has been retained by this city for work at the swimming area. Please let your city councilor and the mayor know that this is not acceptable. Let them know that we can come up with plans that work much better for all Newton residents and for the well being of this beloved Newton natural resource.