Parks are great. Coordinating students to produce a piece of public art is nice. But the city of Lawrence should steer clear of a request to buy a vacant downtown lot and turn it into a pocket park primarily to preserve the view of a student-painted mural.

Students from the private Century School recently stopped work on the mural they were painting on a building at 825 Vt. across the alley from their school. Although it’s a nice enough project, it seems the school didn’t plan ahead as well as it should have.

Students had been working on the mural for months, but they hadn’t received a city permit for the project. What brought the work to a halt, however, was a concerned owner of a neighboring vacant lot where scaffolding had been erected to provide access to the mural. Not only had the students not received permission to erect the scaffolding, the property owner was rightly concerned about his liability for any injury that might occur.

To resolve the issue, a teacher in charge of the project suggested that the city purchase the lot – listed for sale at $185,000 – and preserve the students’ work as decoration for a pocket park. Officials of Century School, however, declined to formally support that plan.

We’re with them. The mural is great but it may be temporary. If the school wants to release the property owner from liability, perhaps the mural can be finished and viewed for some time before it is blocked by new construction. But the city doesn’t need another tiny park so close to South Park and Buford M. Watson Jr. Park. This lot is a prime location for downtown business or housing and should be allowed to stay in private hands where it can serve one of those purposes and continue to provide tax revenue – not additional expense – for the community.