Ojai’s Cluff Vista Park honored

A little housekeeping here - thanks to Chris Wilson for passing this on.

Ojai’s Cluff Vista Park has won top honors, a first place honor award in parks and recreation design,  from the Southern California Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Partners in developing the park included the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, the City of Ojai and dozens of private donors, most notably Don and Sheila Cluff, for whom the park is named. The park was funded entirely by community donations, and augmented by public works construction provided by the City of Ojai. Bostrom & Associates was selected to lead the design team, which included Van Atta Associates landscape architects of Santa Barbara. Ground-breaking took place in 2001 and the park was completed in 2002.

Once a blighted, polluted, former gas station, today Cluff Vista Park’s meandering pathways, public art, fountains and native plants welcome all as they enter downtown and offer park visitors panoramic views of the surrounding mountains.

Bordered by Ojai Avenue, El Paseo Road and Rincon Street, the triangular park incorporates sustainable landscape design features, an approach that Bostrom & Associates integrates into their projects whenever possible. The landscape of Cluff Vista Park uses very little irrigation, and the water features are recirculating. No pesticides or fertilizers are used, and permeable, decomposed granite walkways allow rainwater to seep back into the ground, instead of running off into storm drains.

Comments

[Michael Didj]

Tyler, great piece on this park. Initially, I was skeptical but it truly makes Ojai more beautiful. I appreciate the background information - most of which I was not aware of.

What's happening with the other aboandoned gas station? I noticed that they took the fence down.