Oak Avenue park on HMB City Council agenda

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the HMB City Council, there will be more parkland on the agenda than just the huge Nurserymen’s Exchange purchase east of town.

Also on the agenda is a parcel at the north end of Oak Avenue [Map], just south of Pilarcitos Creek and west of Highway 1. The area can also be seen in this satellite photo. City Manager Debra Ryan has reached an agreement with the seller and the Council will vote on the purchase. This is a wonderful plan to create a park for a neighborhood that could use some public space. The park would include the southern landing of the Pilarcitos Creek pedestrian bridge.

I parked at Strawflower Village and walked over to Oak Avenue yesterday to get feel for the space. The scary part is walking along Highway 1 in what must be a regular trip for anyone shopping at Safeway from the area. It’s a terrifying ordeal on a slanted, broken shoulder that dips toward the creekbed, over a narrow sidewalk on the highway overpass of the creek, and then a right turn through a trash-strewn lot into the neighborhood itself. You see adults and children walking along the highway to and from Strawflower Village every day. The pedestrian bridge across the creek will be a special boon to folks who live in this area. And it’s going to be even better because there will now be a park on the southern landing of the bridge.

The neighborhood is what passes for high-density on the coast, consisting mostly of small apartment buildings, especially as you go further north.  It’s especially nice to see parkland, and not more apartment buildings, on the borders of the creek and next to one of Half Moon Bay’s less-affluent neighborhoods.