Following approval from the borough council last week, a committee will get to work transforming the former Pleasureland Property into Great Oak Park, an envisioned 40-acre recreation area running along Ramapo Valley Road.
The land, purchased by the borough in 2010 through open space funding, has been largely abandoned since a gang-related 1985 shooting left two dead at the popular recreation site.
The newly formed Great Oak Park Committee will work to change that, guiding improvements that Recreation Commission chairman Mike Guadagnino has said will be aimed at transforming the site into a central recreation area for Oakland residents in years and decades to come.
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Appointed to the committee, which Guadagnino will chair, were Nancy Larkin, recreation commissioner Steve Saliani, and environmental commission chairman Lee Haymon and commissioner Mark Ostapczuk. Chris Visconti was named the committee’s council liaison.
The team of recreation and environmental commissioners on the project is fitting for the project, as Guadagnino says that the committee’s top priority will be working to obtain DEP clearances for alterations to the site, and undertaking the improvements in an “environmentally sound” and safe manner.
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The immediate work of the committee will also center around founding a nonprofit arm to raise money for subsidiary projects undertaken at the park.
“Once the committee has established these objectives we will then reach out to the overwhelming mass of volunteers who have generously raised their hands asking to help,” Guadagnino said.
Among the ideas floated for the park’s future have been a skate park, dog park, and botanical garden, which would each be pursued by volunteer subcommittees and require approval from the council.
But in the short term, the group’s priority will be clearing paths and entrances, and doing the foundation work to safely open the park to residents in its most basic form.
Guadagnino said that the committee’s “lofty goal” is to have the park open, at least in a “rudimentary form,” by next spring, depending on the pace of the work and the process for obtaining permits from the state.