The city says it can’t immediately accept a $300,000 offer to improve the site of the beloved High Park castle playground that was torched in an arson two weeks ago.

More than two dozen companies, among them landscapers and a leader in “natural” playgrounds, had suggested numerous new additions to the Jamie Bell Adventure Playground, including built-in musical instruments, a hill slide, a recirculating naturalized stream, an extended pathway, boulders and logs for seating, and drainage improvements.

They said they would do all of the work by summer, for free — but that they had to undertake the project right away, or not until the fall, because their busy season begins soon.

The city’s parks officials heard the ideas for the first time at a meeting Thursday. They did not reject them and had praise for several. But they said the city needs to develop a comprehensive plan for the site, after conducting formal community consultation, before they can give any major construction project the go-ahead, especially because the site lies in an environmentally sensitive ravine.

“We’re not really in a position to say, ‘That looks great, go plunk that boulder there.’ That’s just not really the way it works,” said spokesperson Graham Mitchell, who added, without providing an estimated completion date, that the city is “moving ahead really fast” on the project.

The companies would not replace the burned castle. Local councillor Sarah Doucette said some of their ideas are not feasible because of the city’s ravines bylaw. Other ideas are terrific, she said, but can be added after the castle is rebuilt.

“We need a plan,” Doucette said. “This is a community rebuild, it’s a community park. We do have to get community input.”

But Jeff Derksen, chair of the High Park Residents’ Association, said his group and the companies already held one consultation meeting, attended by some 80 people on 24 hours’ notice, and expected 200 at another meeting they scheduled. They also organized four brainstorming sessions with local children.

“I understand that the city would like to follow a process it knows well internally. I personally don’t understand why there wouldn’t be a process exception given the exceptional nature of the generosity that’s being offered by people whose work this is,” Derksen said.

News of the city’s decision spread Friday via a Facebook group dedicated to the rebuilding effort. One resident called it “sad and heartbreaking.” Wrote another: “Foolish bureaucracy!”

“Why can’t be there be a way to speed things up when an offer like this comes along?” said Elena Yunusov, who takes her infant daughter to the playground, in an interview. “It seems like they thought the community was mobilizing too quickly for them. If that’s the case, they should get their act together and move as quickly as we do.”

Landscape Ontario executive director Tony DiGiovanni, who has helped organize the companies’ effort, attempted Friday to calm the brewing outrage. Noting the need to protect water quality in ravines, he said the city’s concerns were “all things that made a lot of sense.”

“I think it’s important to note that they did not say ‘No.’ I’ve been reading some of the Facebook stuff, and I’ve thought, ‘Oh, no, come on now, that’s not really what they said.’”

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Adam Bienenstock, founder and principal designer of Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, said he appreciates the city’s concerns but that he would have preferred a “damn the torpedoes” approach, given the extraordinary coalition of industry talent that assembled near-spontaneously.

“There’s a thing about momentum. And that’s the thing that’s really sad: the momentum’s lost,” Bienenstock said.