Issues and Opportunities Emerge from Fall Workshops

Over the past several months, the planning team has been analyzing the great feedback we received from the October Community Workshops Series and collecting data to help form preliminary recommendations for the plan. In addition to the fall community workshops, our team has conducted and begun analyzing a statistically valid survey of 800+ community members across Hamilton County. Currently, the team is conducting a Levels of Service comparison of Great Parks to other parks systems we are similar to, and aspire to be like.

The Comprehensive Master Plan will reflect the contributions from the community in all these efforts. So far, the Master Plan community engagement has reached:

Here are the ways we’ve engaged those people:

• Stakeholder Group Interviews
• Community Visioning Workshop
• Media Outreach
• Community Events
• Online Engagement

Below are some of the big themes that have been distilled from the input we received from stakeholder interviews and the fall workshop series. These themes are also supported by the statistically valid survey—more on that coming soon!

EMERGING THEMES:

Access & Connections

• Improve transportation access to and within the parks
• Improve existing trails, build new trails, create more trail connections
• Expand water activities and access

Conservation & Sustainability

• Implement sustainable design & policies
• Prioritize conservation and maintain limited access

Activities & Programming

• Expand programming opportunities
• Build new amenities
• Increase marketing and communications to promote the parks and build support

Leadership & Collaboration

• Improve community collaboration and partnerships
• Prioritize growth in land and parks

Click here to view or download a more detailed Community Update Presentation

If you haven’t had a chance to participate yet, there will be more opportunities this spring through mobile outreach events. Click here for more information.

There will also be another round of community workshops this spring, so keep an eye out for more information coming soon. Be sure to sign up for the e-newsletter to receive project updates.