Tiburon is moving forward with upgrades to the Bel Aire Play Area despite increased costs.<\/p>\n
The Town Council vote 4-0 on Wednesday to approve an $812,363 contract with W.R. Forde Associates Inc. of Richmond to complete the work. Mayor Jon Welner was absent.<\/p>\n
The council also approved a budget amendment for the project. The contract brings the total project cost to a little over $1 million. Funding comes from the park development and Old Rail Trail reserve fund.<\/p>\n
After several years conducting community meetings and surveys on park projects, the town landed on final designs for the project in March.<\/p>\n
The plan includes updating accessible paths, improving seating and picnic areas, adding landscaping and native plantings and updating signage. It also includes path widening to better accommodate mobility devices and strollers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been three years of hard work by the Town Council, by the Parks, Open Space and Trails Commission, by our staff, by our consultants, and most of all, by the community,\u201d said Councilmember Holli Thier. \u201cRight now, making this accessible, putting in the pathways, the seating, the picnic areas, native plants, it\u2019s going to transform an entire community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project bids came in at about 29% higher than the original cost estimate of $470,000. Thier asked about the discrepancy.<\/p>\n
David Eshoo, public works engineering manager, said the consultants on the project, Carlile Macy, were not surprised because the cost increase was in line with other parks projects they were developing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were trying our hardest to reduce as much as we can,\u201d said Eshoo. \u201cI think we tried to cut more than what\u2019s feasible and in the end you can just cut so much and the prices are just coming in a lot higher than what we anticipated, especially with materials, costs are just increasing on a monthly basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some residents indicated a desire to raise money for the project. The council would use donations before town funds, Town Manager Greg Chanis said.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Jack Ryan supported moving forward with the project, but expressed frustration at the cost estimate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m definitely disappointed that the consultant did not reflect what they anticipated the true cost to be,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cAs we go forward to the next few parks, we want accurate cost estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thier said that while she understood the concern about cost, the accessibility upgrades were important to prioritize.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Alice Fredericks agreed, saying it was \u201cmore expensive \u2026 than any of us really expected,\u201d but called the effort \u201cworth it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tiburon is moving forward with upgrades to the Bel Aire Play Area despite increased costs. The Town Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,181,23,992,100,180,993,266,101,103,102,104,106,105,31023,31024],"class_list":["post-456429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-marin-county","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-tiburon","tag-tiburon-town-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}