The City of Santa Rosa is pleased to announce that construction on the city’s two remaining fire damaged park projects is scheduled to begin. The Six Fire Damaged Parks Recovery project will begin construction this month and the Fire Damaged Roadway Landscaping project is slated to begin in June.

The parks recovery process involves restoring six parks and open space parcels in the Fountaingrove area and removing fire damaged roadway landscaping and replacing the irrigation system damaged in the Fountaingrove and Coffey Park burn scar areas.

Debris removal and restoration will begin concurrently this month at all six parks and open space parcels which includes Rincon Ridge Neighborhood Park, Rincon Ridge Open Space, Fir Ridge Neighborhood Park, Nagasawa Community Park, Francis Nielsen Neighborhood Park, and Parker Hill Trail. The project involves removing and replacing fire damaged vegetation, fencing, signage, picnic benches, irrigation systems, and the play equipment at Fir Ridge Park. Community input guided the design selection for the new play structures for ages 2-5 years and 5-12 years to be installed at Fir Ridge Park.

Construction costs to restore the six parks and open space parcels is estimated at $1.5 million. The funding was obtained through FEMA, Cal OES, and PG&E settlement funds. This project is expected to be completed in six months pending material availability.

In fall 2019, under a separate contract, the city completed the fire recovery rebuild on two pedestrian bridges along Parker Hill Trail and one pedestrian bridge in Francis Nielsen Park.

The Fire Damaged Roadway Landscaping project will remove and replace portions of roadway landscaping, including supporting electrical and irrigation infrastructure damaged in the Fountaingrove and Coffey Park burn scar areas. Fountaingrove area HOAs, CoffeyStrong from the Coffey Park neighborhood, and the Santa Rosa Fire Department have participated in design review for the new roadway landscaping.

Construction costs to restore the damaged roadway landscaping and infrastructure is estimated at $6 million. In 2019 the City was awarded a Cal OES Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to restore the steep slopes along the roadway, in the amount of $394,339, FEMA reimbursement will be requested for the remaining amount, less the city’s 6.25% share amount. This project is anticipated to require a year to complete.

Following the wildfire, the city worked with FEMA and Cal OES to organize the city’s recovery efforts into 29 projects with an initial estimate of $111 million of which $69 million was ultimately approved by FEMA. Several project components were denied by FEMA. Fortunately, city staff secured additional disaster recovery funding through the PG&E settlement, Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery for mitigation and infrastructure projects and the Federal Highway Administration Emergency Relief program. These additional funds, totaling nearly $59 million, will allow the city to move forward to complete those public infrastructure projects denied by FEMA and see the fire impacted communities mended from the visual and physical impacts caused by the wildfire.

More information on the City’s Infrastructure Recovery please visit, https://srcity.org/3030/Restoring-Parks

Six Fire Damaged Parks – Recovery CIP project specific webpage visit, http://cippublic.srcity.org/ProjPages/2248.html 

Fire Damaged Roadway Landscaping CIP project specific webpage visit, http://cippublic.srcity.org/ProjPages/2300.html