A delegation of residents came to City Council Monday to protest a Redevelopment Authority proposal to build market-rate single-family homes on Orchard Park in Logantown — a project designed to bolster the city’s anemic tax base and enhance its deficient stock of housing.

There once were three sizeable parks in Logantown, but the park where Blair Medical Center now stands was lost in the 1970s and the park on First Street where outparcels of Martin’s plaza are located now was lost in the 1990s — so Orchard is the only park left, said Chuck LaMark, a delegation leader.

“Why take Logantown’s only park?” LaMark asked council members.

“I ask you guys to look at other options,” said Damian Spallone, who lives on the 200 block of Beech Avenue, across from Orchard Park. “There are plenty of blighted homes” that could be replaced instead, Spallone said.

Orchard Park was where he routinely took his daughter to appreciate nature — including flowers and fireflies, said Steve Elfelt, who lives nearby.

It’s the kind of place where local kids can enjoy the kinds of “things we want kids to do, instead of the things we don’t want them to do,” Elfelt said.

As a park in a poor neighborhood, Orchard is especially valuable because many who live nearby don’t have the transportation alternatives that would allow them to take advantage of green spaces farther away, Elfelt said.

“Please pause this,” said Tim Smith, a retired U.S. Army warrant officer who worked in intelligence.

The loss of Orchard would diminish nearby property values, said Melissa Wertz, whose house is adjacent and whose family moved there because of the park.

She wants her future grandchildren to be able to play there, she said.

The Orchard Park proposal is a Redevelopment Authority matter, rather than a City Council issue, said Mayor Matt Pacifico, who along with Ron Beatty is one of two council members who sit on the authority board.

Whether the authority ends up moving forward with the project likely depends on the quality of proposals it gets in response to a request for proposals it advertised recently, according to Pacifico.

Proposals were due Monday, but it wasn’t certain whether any were received, Interim City Manager Nate Kissell said.

The authority is trying to facilitate creation of all types of housing in response to the need, which is nationwide, so young people here are willing to raise their families locally, according to Beatty.

The authority is using both rehabilitation of blighted structures and new construction on properties cleared by demolition — along with building on already vacant ground — to achieve that end, according to Beatty.

Success in that endeavor is necessary if the city is to swell its tax base, he said.

It needs to swell the tax base so it can afford to maintain its workforce and provide needed services to residents, he said.

A discussion at the meeting of the yawning distance between the wage demands of the city’s non-uniformed workers union and the city’s counter-offer illustrates the need for putting the city on a more stable financial footing, Beatty suggested.

One of the advantages of constructing homes on Orchard Park is that the nice surrounding neighborhood will enable a builder to make a profit, said Councilman Dave Ellis.

Building piecemeal on lots created by demolition of blighted property is problematic, because it’s generally hard or impossible to make money on such projects in those more troubled neighborhoods, he said.

“No one is going to build a $250,000 house in a neighborhood where the property value is $70,000,” Ellis said.

The city has tried to take advantage of the few large tracts available, including the former Keith Athletic Field, along with a five-acre tract in another neighborhood, but resident opposition has caused the city to back off, Ellis said.

“We need to find places to build,” Ellis said. “We need to make tough decisions.”

If the city doesn’t bolster its tax base, it will need to raise taxes even further, according to Ellis.

Council Monday adopted a budget that raised both property and earned income taxes.

“It’s a balancing act,” Beatty said of the tension between maintaining green space and facilitating development.

“It’s frustrating to everybody,” Ellis said.

The park ground was drawn into lots in a plan submitted to the city about 1910 by farmer John C. McCartney, whose farmhouse was nearby, and who developed the entirety of Logantown, which stretches from Chestnut to 22nd Avenue and from First to Fourth Street, according to LaMark.

McCartney backed off the actual development of those Orchard lots to provide green space for the neighborhood, LaMark said.

The authority is looking to take the park for the sake of a handful of “rinky dink units,” LaMark said.

It’s doing so because it’s simply “convenient,” he said.

But once that happens, “it’s gone forever,” he said.

“It shouldn’t be necessary to take a class action (suit),” LaMark said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.