BEND, OR -- Shevlin Park is set to grow by more than 300 acres, thanks to a partnership between the Trust for Public Land, the Bend Park and Recreation District and The Tree Farm, LLC development. Julie Brown, with the parks district, says the new land will be managed as open space. "With a lot of trails within there. A lot of the trails within the Tree Farm are existing right now. So the addition into Shevlin Park is really just going to give us the opportunity to create some additional connections to the rest of the Shevlin Park trails that are there. But, for the most part, it’s going to be a community forest and an open space area."
The deed for the 329 additional acres prohibits future residential development on the parcel, and requires ongoing wildfire management to create a wildfire buffer for the city. It also establishes some seasonal trail closures for winter mule deer migration.
Brown says the deal is part of the long-term plan developed in the early stages of The Tree Farm project. "This really allows us, as the Park and Recreation District, to take over the management of this area and take care of it in the same way that we do with the rest of Shevlin Park; which is going to be a great opportunity for the community to make use of the trails that are already there. We’re going to do some additional trail work within there, to really make it a smooth connection to the rest of Shevlin Park." The acquisition takes the park to nearly a thousand total acres on the western edge of Bend.
