Business View Civil & Municipal l November 2022

82 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 9 purchased to create a passive-use open space area. “We’re calling it ECO park,” says Bolli. “That has kind of a nod to environmentalism but also East Covington.” Upgrades will also be done to Covington Community Park, a city landmark, which currently has trails, ball fields, an amphitheater, a large playground, and several shelters. With a vision that includes the creation of a Town Center, Covington has purchased 8 acres of available land from the Kent School District. Bolli describes, “What we want is really for this to be a cultural gathering hub of not just Covington, but of the larger region around us. We want this to be a place that will have several acres, and be an open plaza that’s surrounded by some water features, a new city hall, and a community center, connected across the street to SoCo park.” With a developer purchasing the adjacent 8 acres of land, the plan is to increase density in the area, allowing for the development of high rises, multi-family attached homes, and townhouses, all centered around the downtown core. Moving away from downtown, Lyons says Covington’s housing stock is predominantly single-family. “The goal, with the introduction of what we’ve done in our downtown, and then also the work of the LakePointe effort, is that we are going to start to have different types of housing choices within the city. That’s really exciting to look forward to, that’s kind of the fruits of all of our work coming together to create something long-term that is a lot more diverse in housing,” she says. Part of the planning for new residential includes protecting the heritage tree canopy throughout the city. “Council and the public have taken this on as a really large value, trying to retain as much of the heritage trees that we have, of our natural canopy covers,” says Lyons. In terms of development she conveys, “We want to use low-impact development where appropriate