The future park next to the San Juan Hills Golf Club officially has a name: Windmill Park.
The San Juan Capistrano City Council gave the approval on Tuesday, Feb. 6, nixing a recommendation by the Planning Commission.
Since November, city officials have been collecting suggestions from the community to name the future passive park on the corner of San Juan Creek Road and La Novia Avenue. The Planning Commission reviewed more than 70 names submitted and recommended “Tony Forster Park.”
Tony Forster was a San Juan Capistrano mayor from 1971 to 1972 as well as a councilmember and planning commissioner. He was also the president of the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society from 1991 until he died in 2007.
Councilmembers, however, rejected the suggestion.
“My reservation with naming the park after a person is what if, after 30 years, people want to change the name of the park,” said Councilmember John Taylor. “It is very difficult to change it if it is the name of a person.”
“I want to keep it neutral,” said Taylor.
Councilmember Troy Bourne noted that the park is not located near Marco Forster Middle School, colloquially known as just “Forster School.” The school has a park next to the campus, which Bourne said would create some confusion if the new park were to be similarly named.
And with a windmill planned for the park, Bourne said that “most people will call it Windmill Park anyways.”
“I think we need to find a way to honor Tony in some other manner,” said Councilmember Howard Hart.
Only Councilmember John Campbell objected to the Windmill Park moniker, saying, “When you look at the accomplishments of this one man (Forster), I think that they are significant enough to afford this recognition.”
Other suggested names, according to a staff report, were El Molino Park (windmill in Spanish), Harvest Park, Hitching Post Park, Mariposa Park (butterfly in Spanish) and Orange Grove Park.
After years of negotiations, the San Juan Capistrano City Council in June unanimously approved a plan to lease city-owned property off of San Juan Creek Road and La Novia Avenue to the San Juan Hills Golf Club to create the park.
Currently under construction, the new park will include a native pollinator garden, bench seating, oak shade trees, a boardwalk, citrus trees and a hitching post for horses as well as a corrugated water trough that will have a windmill to circulate the water.
The City Council approved a 30-year initial term lease with a 20-year available extension, amounting to $50,000 annually to fund park maintenance and supplement other nearby city-constructed improvements. The total area of the lease is five acres, but construction plans only use a little over one acre of that space.
Construction is underway and is expected to be finished by summer, according to assistant city manager Matisse Reischl.
