Bare Minimum for New Parks : Recreation: Tight budgets and neighbors’ concerns cited for lack of amenities at Oxnard sites.

On most days after school, Antwon Land and his teen-age friends hang out in a dirty drainage ditch beside the Santa Clara River, practicing skateboard tricks and whittling away days of boredom.

When they heard that Oxnard was building a community park in the center of their California Cove neighborhood, they imagined a place where they could play sandlot football, skate and simply have a fun time.

But the city and some of the surrounding property owners had a different vision for South Bank Park--more of a forest motif, with trees sprawled throughout the six-acre site--and the youths say they are disappointed.

“They didn’t do anything,” said Land, 13, bouncing a racquetball on the concrete sidewalk next to the fenced-off park. “We thought it would be cool if they built a basketball court, or a place to skateboard. But they just put in a bunch of trees.”

After years of delays due to budget problems, three northwest Oxnard neighborhoods will finally get the community parks they were promised by summer’s end.

But due to Oxnard’s shrinking parks budget, neither South Bank Park, Cabrillo Park or Connelly Park will contain restrooms, basketball courts, playgrounds, picnic tables or any other recreational facilities, city officials say.

Instead, the parks, expected to open by August, will feature picturesque “tree and turf” decorations and meandering walking paths, making them more beautiful but less child-friendly, said Oxnard Parks Supt. Michael Henderson.

The different park approach will make the parks cheaper to maintain, Henderson said.

But members of the Oxnard Parks and Recreation Commission say the city has a serious lack of places for children and young people to play, and the new style of parks will do nothing to alleviate the worsening dilemma.

“They’re nice-looking parks, with a lot of trees, but they don’t provide any kind of recreational activity for youth,” Parks Commissioner Ignacio Carmona said. “I complained about that, but [parks officials] said that having an open park with grass is better than having no park at all.”

Parks official Dave Gorcey, who designed the sites, said he met with residents in the three neighborhoods and found that they were opposed to building restrooms, basketball courts and other traditional park fixtures.

The residents believed the amenities would bring unwanted people into the neighborhood and decided a simple, pretty park would be more desirable, he said. Moreover, many of the nearby property owners were tired of living beside an empty lot, and wanted something done immediately.

As she lathered up her boyfriend’s boat on Monday across from Cabrillo Park, Hillary Zanuzoski said the Summerfield neighborhood was fed up with having a blighted eyesore at its center.

The new $382,000 park--a series of alder-lined walkways leading to a large ficus tree in a cobblestone planter--is far from perfect, she said. But it is a welcome sight.

“It was so ugly, an open empty field with nothing,” she said. “It’s long-awaited. It will enhance the neighborhood.”

Zanuzoski said basketball courts and other recreational facilities would have been a drawback to the quiet, upscale neighborhood.

“The basketball courts bring more people, more activities,” she said. “Without the courts, it will be a nice, quaint park.”

Residents of the Windsor Park neighborhood were promised a park of the same name 20 years ago. But the plan never materialized and finally, construction on $433,000 Connelly Park began in the area in February, city officials said.

The delay was due in part to a dispute between Oxnard and Strathmore Homes, a developer who donated the 3.1-acre site to the city in exchange for approval to build 406 residences around the River Ridge Golf Course.

City officials found a gasoline tank under the site, and refused to pay for cleanup costs. The developer eventually agreed to pick up the tab, but by that time, the Oxnard City Council had issued a moratorium on park development due to dwindling revenues.

During meetings last year, residents of the affluent neighborhood told parks officials that they did not want basketball courts, barbecue grills or public restrooms in the park, which is bordered by three homes.

The grills were a fire hazard, the basketball courts would create a parking problem, and the restrooms would be a smelly hangout for needle-using druggies, the residents complained.

“A lot of the residents of these neighborhoods didn’t want a full-blown park,” Henderson said, “and frankly, the city has a tight budget. The costs with these are much less.”

Such talk means little to 13-year-old Shane Reid of California Cove, who was hoping South Bank Park would become a recreation-filled neighborhood hangout where he could skate with friends.

“Our city’s too cheap to do that,” he said, staring into the forest of South Bank Park. “They’ve taken forever even to do this.”