One of Beaufort’s largest parks is up for improvements. Here’s how you can weigh in
The future of Beaufort’s Southside Park has garnered a lot of attention from the community in recent weeks as the city works to make the 34 acres more appealing and usable.
Earlier this month, the city released a survey asking residents what they want in the park. By Tuesday’s City Council meeting, more than 450 people had responded.
Southside Park, one of the city’s largest parks, is in the Mossy Oaks neighborhood along Southside Boulevard off Battery Creek Road.
The city gained ownership of the park, a process that began in 1999 and took several years to fully come to fruition, after Beaufort Jasper Water and Sewer Authority left, and since then, the park has not changed much besides the addition of a fenced-in dog park, according to previous reporting by the Beaufort Gazette on a similar 2018 survey.
The park also has a walking trail, open grassy area, and restrooms.
The current survey includes a list of potential amenities — such as a community garden, an enhanced wetland habitat for observation and education, frisbee golf, horseshoe pits, a playground, a multipurpose paved court — and asks residents to rank them “extremely important,” “somewhat important,” or “not important at all.”
It also asks for additional ideas and what events or activities the community wants to see in the park.
The deadline to complete the survey is March 28. The link to the survey is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SouthsidePark, and the city will be distributing paper copies.
The Southside Park Task Force, appointed by City Council in January, have overseen the survey and other renewed efforts to make the park more widely used. The group will present its plans for the park to City Council by May 11, so the new amenities can be considered for the next year’s budget, which begins July 1.
“We encourage as many people as possible to take a few minutes to fill out this survey,” task force chairman Brantley Wilson said in a news release. “Our residents really have a chance to shape the development of this park.”
Southside Park is one of the city’s 20 parks listed on its website, including Washington Street Park in the city’s Northwest Quadrant neighborhood, which recently got a new playground.
