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WINTER BEACH CEMETERY MOBART PARK CONVERSION PROPOSAL Asst. County Attorney Collins reviewed the following: TO: James E. Chandler - County Administrator FR0M:t,Pir,,W1ll'iam G. Collins II - Assistant County Attorney DATE: October 12, 1990 SUBJECT: Winter Beach Cemetery/Hobart Park Conversion Proposal The Winter Beach Cemetery is operated by a nonprofit corporation at 73rd Street In the vicinity of 44th Avenue. The cemetery association was set up to provide an organization to maintain and provide burial services to pioneer families and indigents. Over the years it has performed that function and at the same time saved the County considerable expense in indigent burials. Several years ago the Board of Directors of the cemetery association asked the Board of County Commissioners for permission to expand the cemetery.westward Into an area which is a part of Hobart Park. A portion of Hobart Park was purchased with federal funds, and as a condition of obtaining those federal funds, the whole park was placed under a recreational deed restriction. The National Park Service of the federal government will not allow a conversion of the park land from a recreational use to some other use unless the recreational estate in the County is maintained by substituting some other land of equivalent utility, location and value for the land which would be turned over to the Winter Beach Cemetery group. _ In the late spring of 1988, the Board of County Commissioners directed then County Administrator Balczun to process the necessary applications to convert a 19# -acre portion of the park property to cemetery use, substituting an approximately 40± -acre parcel off Old Dixie and First Street, which was used as an old landfill, as a new park site. The Board further authorized the necessary appraisals which were required by the National Park Service. Mr. Balczun was terminated two to three months thereafter and 1 saw that the necessary environmental assessments, appraisals and surveys were put together and submitted to the State Department of Natural Resources for approval. Last month the County was contacted by the Department of Natural Resources and a representative of DNR and the National Park Service visited each of the two sites (Winter Beach and Old Dixie/First Street). Both DNR and the National Park Service found the Old Dixie/First Street site to be equivalent to the Winter Beach parcel in both location and utility. The reasons for these conclusions are essentially that the South County area is less favored by park lands than the North County area and has a greater population which needs park services. Therefore the state and federal government have concluded that the proposed site is of at least equal utility. The location is equal because of its proximity to greater population centers. However, the National Park Service appraisers and DNR appraisers objected that the proposed park site to be substituted at Old Dixie/First Street was not the equivalent In value to the Winter Beach site. This, even though our appraisals 75 BOOK �%� piGE 01 T 223 1990 _