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Shady Cove wants ODOT parcel for park Riverfront property sought to encourage passive recreation By MELISSA MARTIN SHADY COVE -- Shady Cove residents hike the deer trails and anglers cast their lines from the edge of the Rogue River. But the 24.6-acre wooded, riverfront land owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation is not yet a city park, although Shady Cove leaders wish it were. "We envision this as a passive park, with walking trails, picnic tables and a paved parking lot," said Jerry L'Estrange, Shady Cove's city administrator. The city of Shady Cove has been eyeing the site since 1993, but couldn't afford its price tag. But recently, the state moved the acreage off of its surplus list of properties to be sold and onto a list of excess property -- land with a purpose, but not necessarily for roads, said Victor Alvarado, property manager supervisor in Salem. ODOT's environmental unit has been working with city leaders, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists and the Upper Rogue Watershed Council to find the best use for the property, he said. "We've been working with (Shady Cove) Mayor Tom Anderson and our environmental folks, talking and sharing ideas," Alvarado said. "(A passive park) might be something we could incorporate." The 24.6-acre site is located at the end of Brophy Way, which runs down the middle of two mobile home parks and dead ends at a private residence. Originally, Shady Cove leaders dreamed of a boat ramp, baseball fields and a playground, said Lois Holland, a City Council member. "We even wanted to have overnight camping so we could use the fees to help us pay for and maintain the park," Holland said. Now, city leaders want the same thing that biologists do -- to preserve the land, Mayor Anderson said. "Our interest was to keep the land out of the hands of developers and allow citizens access to the river and we've accomplished that," Anderson said. The Oregon Department of Transportation purchased the land in the 1960s to remove and stockpile sand and gravel for Highway 62 projects, said Curt Weaver, an aggregate consultant in Medford and a former Jackson County planner. They built recruitment bars, or berms to create ponds that would collect clean gravel. It was an extraction method banned years ago because of the way it caused channel changes in the river, Weaver said. "At one point, the Rogue River above TouVelle Park moved a half-mile from where it used to be because of recruitment bars being built for gravel operations around there," Weaver said. The state hasn't extracted gravel from the Brophy Way site for decades. Today, the state values the land for wetlands mitigation -- developing a salmon or wetland project in exchange for a highway project built through resource lands, said John Vial, ODOT's district manager. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA