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Share Input on the Future of Knoxville Parks |
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The public engagement phase for Play Knoxville, the City’s Parks & Recreation Master Plan, is now underway. The Master Plan will help guide investments in parks, greenways, community centers and programming over the next decade.
The planning process started in January with the formation of a steering committee of community leaders. Since then, City staff and consultants from Perez Planning + Design have conducted dozens of focus groups, one-on-one meetings with City Council and Cabinet members, and site visits to nearly 70 parks across Knoxville.
Learn More |
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The Parks and Recreation Master Plan is a 10-month community planning process, designed to:
• Identify parks and recreation needs in the city
• Anticipate future demand
• Build a shared vision for improvements to the parks and recreation system.
The master plan will analyze Knoxville Parks & Recreation as a whole, providing system-wide recommendations for the department’s parks, programs, facilities, services, and maintenance operations.
The plan provides guidelines for implementing the recommendations over a long-range timeline, expected to be 10+ years.
Projects will be prioritized for phased implementation, including:
• Short term
(1-3 years)
• Mid-term
(4-6 years)
• Long-term
(7-10 years)
Why plan for parks now?
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) traditionally required that local departments create or update their Parks and Recreation Master Plan every 5 years to help guide State funding allocations. While TDEC is now revising their strategy for parks and recreation master plans, it has been over 15 years since Knoxville last updated a parks and recreation master plan, so it is an appropriate time for the Knoxville Department of Parks and Recreation to develop a new plan.
Knoxville is experiencing population growth, with an estimated increase of close to 10,000 residents in the last five years. This growth requires understanding how all residents, both new and old, can be equitably served by the parks and recreation system, particularly as the city continues to grow.
Lastly, the City has been developing a variety of planning initiatives in recent years, including:
• Greenway Corridor Study
• One Year Plan
• Urban Forest Master Plan
• Design for the Urban Wilderness Gateway Park
How can I share input?
We’d love to hear your thoughts on improving Knoxville’s parks and recreation programs! Community feedback is a primary goal of the plan and will ensure that the plan’s recommendations are citizen-driven. You can share input in-person at a public meeting or a community event, or online anytime.