Lubbock Parks Master Plan addresses staff, demand for facilities, improving Canyon Lakes

KCBD
By Kase Wilbanks
Published: Oct. 11, 2022 at 8:00 PM GMT-6
Updated: Oct. 11, 2022 at 9:18 PM GMT-6

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - The Lubbock City Council was presented with an overview of the Lubbock Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan on Tuesday. It’s been in the works for more than a year, designed to lead the Parks & Recreation Department into the next decade.

Kalee Robinson, Park Development Manager, said the last council-approved master plan was from 2011.

“We hadn’t really taken a look at the overall picture, big picture of our department to have that guidance tool for the next five to 10 years,” Robinson said. “That’s when we started that ball rolling in 2020. In 2021, we signed on with Halff Associates for that contract for the master plan. It’s been about an 18-month project. We’re in the final stages of it.”

Halff Associates, a consulting firm, briefed the Council on the studies and proposals within the six chapters. The Parks & Recreation Board is set to approve the plan later this month before it goes before the Council for final approval in November.

After an introduction, the plan describes Lubbock’s existing parks and how a smaller staff maintains more acreage than similar cities.

“A lot of our top priorities are obviously with our maintenance and our staffing,” Robinson said. “We definitely know that we need to figure out better ways, as far as our staffing right now, to keep maintaining all the parks. We have close to 3,500 acres of park land. Whenever you break that down, we’re at about 58 acres per maintenance [Full-Time Equivalent] that we have. That’s a lot of park land to manage. [The Master Plan] is going to call out for us to kind of implement some changes to the way that we do maintenance.”

The presentation turned to data showing the need for more sports and athletic facilities for a growing population. It also addressed indoor recreation and aquatics facilities with a focus on community centers and a need reconfigure their operations. One suggestion was offering shuttles to a single facility for physical fitness while others provide different programs.

“We’re not going to immediately jump into building a massive recreation center,” Robinson said. “We know things like that are going to take time. But, we also know that’s something that the city needs and the citizens deserve. Those are going to be things that come down the line, and there’s going to be a lot of talks, as far as the funding is concerned, for that. We’re really excited for those opportunities and the things that this plan calls out for us to implement in the future.”

In the immediate future, the Parks & Recreation Department will move forward with the plan to replace city pools with splash pads and reconstructing the Clapp Park pool to continue to serve citizens.

“We just received the ARPA funding for those splash pads so we’re going to be getting the ball rolling on those projects that are specifically called out within the Master Plan,” Robinson said. “We’re going to have 12 new walking trails put into different parks. There are a lot of things that we’re already getting the ball rolling on through the ARPA funding. We’re going to be accomplishing those here in the next few years, which I think is really exciting.”

Chapter 5 of the Master Plan addresses Lubbock’s Lakes and the effort to improve and connect them in order to make the Canyon Lake system a regional destination.

“It’s also calling out for us to do some really fun things like at the Canyon Lakes, which I believe is really truly the gem of our city, to create blueways so that people can put a canoe in Lake 1 and go all the way down to Lake 6, and hopefully eventually to Lake 7, the future Lake 7, and also hiking and biking trails, things like that. We’re really excited about the potential for those new opportunities that are going to come through this plan.”

When asked about a price tag for the projects in the Master Plan, Director Colby VanGundy told Councilwoman Latrelle Joy that his department would put forward the cost in yearly budgets as the priorities are implemented.

Meanwhile, Robinson said an objective of developing the Master Plan is to gain better access to grant funding, including from Texas Parks & Wildlife, which they plan to submit to upon approval of the plan.

“If you’ve got a recent master plan that they can really grasp onto and see that grant that you’re going for has been called out within that master plan, that really helps you to leapfrog to the top of the table quite often,” Robinson said. “We’re really excited about that. Then it also leads us into our CAPRA accreditation process with the National Recreation and Parks Association. Being CAPRA accredited is one of our major goals as well. Once we get that final approval from Council, we can get that ball rolling and we’re really excited about it.”

The Master Plan is set to be published when approved. In the meantime, you can access a presentation by Halff Associates at playlubbock.com.