Parks and Rec Master Plan accepted by City Council

The 2022 Master Plan will guide decision-making and investments for the department. The plan received unanimous support from the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB), Planning Board, and City Council.

• Boulder Parks and Recreation’s Master Plan

“Our ‘Master Plan promise’ to the community is that we will use this plan to guide our work,” said Parks and Recreation Director Ali Rhodes. “The values and priorities expressed in this plan will shape each decision we make to ensure that the city’s parks and recreation system promotes the health and well-being of our entire community through an unparalleled system of parks, facilities and programs.”

In the Master Plan, six key themes provide a framework to help organize the policies, goals and initiatives, and help shape the strategies that are the focus for future action and decision-making. In addition, sustainability, equity and resilience are lenses through which the department will evaluate all work. The key themes are:

• Community health and wellness
• Financial sustainability
• Taking care of what we have
• Building community and relationships
• Youth engagement and activity
• Organizational readiness

“This approved plan will help us ensure that Boulder’s tax investments in parks and recreation are optimized for our community’s benefit,” said Natural Resources Senior Manager and Master Plan Project Manager Regina Elsner.

The department worked with the community, stakeholders and staff for almost two years to develop the plan, with extensive community engagement including in-person and virtual meetings, delivering a statistically valid survey, hosting social media engagement, Spanish-language workshop, community presentations, and online feedback. Staff also presented drafts of the plan to PRAB, Planning Board and Council, throughout the process while incorporating community feedback.

“The planning process is complete and now comes the fun work to implement the plan, which started when we organized and proposed our budget for 2023,” said Rhodes.

• Learn about the Parks and Recreation Master Plan and the community engagement process.