On Thursday, Philadelphia City Council introduced legislation authorizing animal husbandry on what, until the fall of 2021, had been part of the Sedgley Woods disc golf course.
As Grid reported, on October 11, 2021 (Indigenous Peoples Day) a worker in an excavator began clearing trees at part of the Sedgley Woods disc golf course in East Fairmount Park. With no advance public communication by the City, disc golfers scrambled to learn what was happening.
A plan — until then secret and developed without consulting the community of disc golfers who had stewarded the land for 40 years — was in motion to use the land for stables for the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club, displaced by a public housing development from the vacant land they had been using to house their horses.
As the Inquirer reported Friday in an article that omitted any mention of the disc golf course, questions remain about the ultimate plans for the land. For example, will the stables be for the exclusive use of the riding club, or will they be open to the general public?
The maps attached to the introduced legislation do not label the Sedgley Woods disc golf course either. Equestrians and disc golfers will apparently need to wait for the City to reveal the final plans for Sedgley Woods.
Transparency should not be too much to ask, nor cooperation in decision making. SMDH Philly.