The room erupted with cheers and applause at the April 11 Maple Valley City Council meeting when the council approved the construction of a disc golf course in Maple Valley.

The City Council, along with the audience, expressed their enthusiasm for the idea. Councilwoman Erin Weaver mentioned she would help volunteer and use the course when it was completed.

In 2013, the Parks Department bought a few disc golf baskets to use at various events. The department saw how popular the baskets were and came up with the idea to build a disc golf course, city of Maple Valley Parks and Recreation Director, Greg Brown said.

The next step was to see how the community would feel about putting in a disc golf course. The Parks Department put out surveys in the Recreation Guides between 2014 and 2015 and got a lot of positive feedback. Almost 400 people responded positively to the survey in that time.

“It shocked us to see that many people were interested,” Brown said.

In January 2016, the parks department decided to have an informational meeting to see how many people would actually show up. A surprising number of people showed up the meeting , a little over 60, which is a lot considering how many people usually come to meetings, Brown said.

During the meeting, people got the opportunity to sign up for a committee that would help plan and design the disc golf course, Brown said. Or they could sign up to volunteer at some point in the process.

Right away, nine people signed up to be on the planning committee and 30 out of the 60 signed up to volunteer. The planning committee has been meeting periodically and the committee came up with the design and every other aspect of this project, Brown said.

“This is all volunteer based, it’s amazing to see how many were interested,” Brown said.

At the April 11 meeting, the committee gave a presentation about how they plan to do it and how much it will cost, hoping the council would approve the idea.

The cost will be a little over $16,000. Half of the amount will come from a grant from the Recreation and Conservation Office, if it is approved. The other half will hopefully come from donations. These are rough numbers, things can come up during the actual process, which may need extra money.

“Generally, I would be shocked if it exceeded $25,000,” Brown said.

The proposed area to be used is the 8.7 acres peninsula property between the arboretum and the community center, and it needs to be cleared. All of the clearing will be done by volunteers, so no extra money will be going toward paying someone to do it.

One issue the council discussed was parking. Councilwoman Linda Johnson said during the meeting, that there is already limited parking so adding something like this could be a concern.

Brown said parking won’t be an issue because people could park at the Maple Valley Community Center during tournaments or other times it was busy, and during the week, it shouldn’t be a problem.

The disc golf course is planned to be open in October.