For the first time ever, kids weighed-in on what they thought belongs at a new park being planned in the Renton Highlands.

“There’s a meeting for a playground and it’s all adults; it’s like how do you know what the kids are gonna want?” said Madeline Bufort, 11.

Bufort spoke during Tuesday night’s third and final community meeting on the Sunset Neighborhood Park Master Plan at McKnight Middle School, which also featured great reviews for what the City of Renton, landscape architect HBB and engineer CH2MHILL have come up with so far.

Bufort thought the plans for the park are really cool and she’s excited to see it built. She is hoping that city officials decide to move the turtle statue that currently sits outside the old Highlands Library to the new location once it’s built. The library borders the park on the southeast corner.

“I thought the plans were really cool and I couldn’t wait to play,” said her younger sister Sara. “I think Madeline’s ideas are really great and I love the way they decided things and got other ideas from other parks.”

Sara’s hoping for a spinning toy at the new park.

Overall the feedback from the community members in the room was very positive. This iteration of the master plan features a main access spine through the park along Harrington Avenue, a boulder feature water channel, centrally located bathrooms, playgrounds for ages 2 to 5 and 5 to 12, an orchard tree concept, rain gardens, a grass hill and plenty of open space.

This was the third meeting to solicit feedback on the design.

Marsha Rollinger is on the Renton Arts Commission and attended to make sure that art and objects like the Highlands Library turtle are incorporated into the park’s final design.

“I think it’s a good community meeting spot, especially with the new library addition,” she said. “I’m all for getting people more out into nature and I think parks are a great way to do this. This is a good example of a mixed-use park that should work.”

The Sunset Neighborhood Park is part of a larger built out of the Sunset Planned Action Environmental Impact Statement Area that includes the new Meadow Crest Early Education Center and its accessible playground, the new Highlands Library and the new housing and retail space planned around the park.

Leslie Betlach is “very excited” and “really happy” about the project. She is the city’s parks planning and natural resources director.

“We had great public feedback, great involvement and it’s their park and I think they’re really going to enjoy it,” she said.

At this point it’s still not clear how the project will be funded. Betlach’s group has a budget request in for 2017 to fund park construction and she says there are opportunities to get grants in between now and then to fund all or part of construction.

“I think the hard part is going to be coming up with the construction money,” she said. “That’s the first hurdle.”

The next steps are to make any further revisions then present it to the Renton Parks Commission, who then can recommend the project to City Council. Betlach and her team go before the Renton Parks Commission on October 14 and the project could be recommended to City Council as soon as November.