Oak Hills plans progressing; public hearing coming up

Update March 1: Confirms March 4 public meeting to unveil proposal.

NORWALK, Conn. – The Oak Hills Park Authority is just about ready to reveal its thoughts on a master plan for the park and seek public input.

OHPA leaders Ernie Desrochers and Chairman Clyde Mount say they are keeping details of their plan to themselves a little while longer, but a public hearing is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. March 4 in the City Hall Community Room. That has not been confirmed by City Hall, they said. To see the preliminary proposal, click here.

Yvonne “Myska” Lopaur, a member of the Friends of Oak Hills Park, attended last week’s OHPA meeting, reporting both the master plan and the latest modifications in the plans for the driving range to NancyOnNorwalk.

“The new plan calls for a 270-yard long, 60-yard wide, 33-bay driving range,” she said in an email of the Total Driving Range Solutions plan.

Jim Downing of TDRS said six bays have been added. Three would be for a Performance Center and three for public use, he wrote in an email. “The Performance Center would be for year-round instruction from the Pro,” he said.

Lopaur quotes Mount as saying the master plan is “a strategic plan for taking the course to the next level.”

“The hoped-for Master Plan as briefly outlined calls for a golf learning center, a tennis learning center and a nature center of some kind,” she wrote in an email. “Nothing was said about how any of this would be financed or help solve the Authority’s financial problems.”

“The plan is very comprehensive and will address many of the issues at hand,” Mount said in an email. “Hopefully you will agree once we make it available to all, which we hope is over this weekend.”