Parks & Recreation Master Plan

A Parks and Recreation Master Plan is a comprehensive, long-range strategy for creating, optimizing, and maintaining a community's recreation assets and services. It does not focus on one particular recreation centre or park but instead offers an overview of a community's parks and recreation landscape, both today and beyond.

The principal objectives of the project are to determine community priorities and develop a series of recommendations and action steps to accommodate the current and future recreation needs of the municipality.

The Plan will guide future investment in recreation facilities, programs, services and partnerships by establishing a strategy to guide decision-making over a 10 year period. Decisions regarding recreation can then be prioritized in alignment with Council’s strategic direction.

The development of the Plan is based on public input, surveys, planning initiatives, existing development, physical characteristics, and social and economic conditions.

• The master planning process enables local governments to assess recreation needs and interests of community members;
• Enables decision makers to prioritize resource allocation decisions for new facilities and rehabilitation projects, programs, and services, in a manner that is fiscally responsible, environmentally sound, publicly supported, and sustainable;

• Supports applications for funding on recreation projects;
• Provides information to form the basis of a Community Benefits Charge Strategy;
• Enhances parks & recreation infrastructure information in the Asset Management Plan;
• Builds credibility, support, and consensus from community members and stakeholders;
• Informs citizens about a park’s needs and importance as community asset;
• Identifies capital improvement goals that are needed to assess fiscal requirements and fundraising needs;
• Guides critical decisions about parks and recreation facilities, infrastructure, programs, and services, including planning decisions; and
• Develops recommendations and an implementation strategy.