Shelton Lakes Restrooms

[Teresa Gallagher]

I hear many requests for restroom facilities at Shelton Lakes.  There are nice looking pre-fab structures that can be installed with very little site work, such as this one, which is ADA compliant:

 

http://news.thomasnet.com/images/large/017/17800.jpg

 

Just something to keep in mind!  I know most of you don't get out on the trails that often, but if you're someone like me with a group of girl scouts  you can appreciate the importance.  Also important for people doing the bridge to bridge hike - that can get a little long.  Maybe something by the white house, where it would be highly visible and hopefully less prone to vandalism.

Teresa Gallagher
Conservation Agent
City of Shelton
(203)924-1555 x315

 

[thomas harbinson]

You can't have anything more high visibility than the Farmer's Market and it's bathroom, and the City can't even keep that open without vandals and damage - thus it is locked all the time unless there is a special event and/or monitor.

 

I'm not a big fan of introducing more creations in the natural environment.  Even my golf course in Ireland has no facility across it's 18hole spread where one typically would spend 4hrs.  I'll also say that given there are no trees on a links course along the ocean, there is no place to hide when nature calls.

 

Down the line, once use is established and becomes frequent, then agreed - the logical location for amenity would be white house area with current septic, water, etc.

 

More important is to get the path built, and let the public use and demand drive such proposals.  I wouldn't spend time looking at bathrooms on the net at this juncture.

[Teresa Gallagher]

OK then, Tom, next time I hear all these complaints I'll have them speak directly to you so that you will become aware that the public is already demanding these features!  And let me, as a member of the public, make my personal demand for such features clear.  Also, all my Girl Scouts ("Mrs Gallagher! We have to go to the bathroom!"), and many Girl Scout leaders would be chiming in here if they could ("We were going to schedule a picnic at Hope Lake, but there are no bathrooms anywhere near there and the woods aren't even thick enough to use").  OK, so that's at least a hundred people right there.

 

There is a gender bias when it comes to restroom facilities.  Women and girls need them more, for reasons I'll not get into here, but it is a fact.  The Conservation Commission, BOA, Trails Committee, Parks & Rec are comprised of men, totally oblivious about what women need.  Not surprisingly, there are no facilities. That's also why there are less likely to be facilities at your golf course, which is probably used primarily by men .

 

Swimming pools, pavilions, and golf course are one thing, but providing basic bathroom facilities is something entirely different.   Needing to use a restroom is not an "optional" activity, and it is basic human decency to provide for that need in areas where the public congregates.   

 

In my opinion, it's not a waste of time to look into options for providing for that need. The reason I emailed the option was that I was going through a box of files and there was a brochure that someone else had pulled out and saved. I just found the online version of it and shared it with this Commission. I do think it is something that should be considered and kept in mind as we build this path.

[thomas harbinson]

Does anyone know where I can find a bathroom? (see photo attachment)

 

Guess my last sentance came off the wrong way.  Sorry.  I didn't mean to imply it's a "waste of time" (in your words) to look at the issue, just not the most worthwhile at this stage.

 

I would encourage reflection on the difference between 'request' for a feature, and 'demand' for a feature.  If I were in front of a Girls Scout tribe - yeah that's a demand!  Hiking on a winter weekend with LandTrust crowd - not so much (but maybe a desire in a few).  What's the tipping point toward providing this? - public will let us know.

 

As I try to diffuse the passion with levity, realize that there are indeed females on BOA (in your ward), Parks & Rec and Trails Committee - granted not high percentage, but when they speak up their voice is heard and not simply desmissed.

 

Encouraging people to congregate at a ball field or farmer's market is apparently worthy of providing facilities.  Is providing access to or improving trails encouraging people to congregate?  If so where is the access point that gathering together is encouraged across the vast Shelton Lakes area and where then should facilities be provided?  What about winter when pipes freeze, will this be heated?

 

I could go on down this rabbit's trail, and it would be unproductive at this point in our plans.  Public use will demand modification of any assumptions made in our plans.  Remember Independence Drive when we recomended stone over sidewalk and that didn't work out.  We started the first paved area of the RecPath with stone dust on one side to help runners avoid shin splints on hard surface - probably won't follow that tact any further.

 

It's good to imagine the future, I don't want to discourage that (cable stayed bridges and all).  However, I think we need to focus on what should come first within this context: Building the Rec Path.  We can't muddy or dilute that message to those making decisions and approvals toward acomplishing that building plan, whether the decisions are land acquiring or improvements upon them.

 

PS: I'll admit that my foreign golf club is primarily men, and the course was certainly designed in layout when women weren't so much a factor to consider, but they do have an active Ladies Club, as do many courses nearby, and none have any sanitary facilities out on the course.  Being in the sand dunes next to the ocean, in areas prohibited from development due to their being in "areas of outstanding natural beauty" or "areas of special scientific interest" or some other designation that somebody had the forethought to identify and others the fortitude to enforce, has ensured a landscape devoid not only of seaside residential condos, but any structure and with only a look of nature.  It is my standard of what a course truly should be.

 

 

[Jim Tate]

Oh my…. And I thought we’d have an interesting banter on anatomy, outhouses and the need for adequate  buffer distances to provide relief!   Ed must be in court, Hank is probably out of the country and Bill has enough sense to stay out of it!   But Jim oh, know… so I think we should use the ‘ole corncrib’ and make it a spacious two holer… of course it may be a little under code and a bit on the nasty, smelly side, but it will make those ‘blue johnnies’ feel like home to any the unacquainted girl scouts!!  We’ll probably need to get some dark green  Port o Johns  screen them with some scented balsams for future screening in some locations.   Tom is right though we really need to focus on just getting the path in… the rest will come. 

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[Marianne Chaya]

You have my vote for restrooms!!

[McCreery, Edward P.]

It may be needed agreed - but I think it has to wait until a critical downtown mass is reached of new & existing residents using the downtown waterfront path or a critical mass of people starts using the rec path above the Middle School or the sad reality is that any restroom facility will be destroyed by vandals.

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From: shel...@googlegroups.com [mailto:shel...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Marianne Chaya
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 7:57 PM