Consultant hired to study Manatee County's parks

On paper, Manatee County’s parks and recreation has what is needed for the community.

But if you drive to Lakewood Ranch Park on any given Saturday morning, the packed parking lot indicates otherwise.

“We find that if we go by the standard, we’re ahead of the curve,” said John Osborne, Manatee’s infrastructure and strategic planning official. “But what we’re hearing from our staff is we’re behind the curve. Every one of our facilities is full.”

Manatee County officials, including Osborne, are asking the public for input as they work to prepare a master plan for Manatee County’s parks and recreation system. 

Public workshops run through Jan. 12 as Manatee officials collect feedback about what parks and recreation amenities Manatee County residents would like to see, where those amenities should go and what, if any, obstacles keep citizens from utilizing the existing parks. A survey for residents will be online through the end of January.

“We’ll take all that feedback and it will give us enough information to get a bell curve of where we need to get to,” said Danny Hopkins, Manatee’s recreation division manager. 

In some instances, the findings may dictate a need for a new park. In others, it may identify needs that can be met within the county’s existing infrastructure. For example, lighting unlit baseball fields or converting sod into artificial turf are both proven ways to increase capacity for athletic programs.

Kelley Klepper, lead planner for parks planning consultant Kimley-Horn and Associates, said the company is conducting an “existing conditions” analysis and will wrap up a needs assessment in late January. It also is conducting an online survey to match community needs with what’s possible. 

Until then, he has no preconceived notions about what the community needs. Recommendations likely will come back to the county after the analysis is finished.

“We have to understand what’s on the ground, what people want and then fit it into the context of Manatee County,” Klepper said.  “We need to be realistic, but at the same time visionary. We want to dream big on this and we want to make these dreams a reality.”

There is no “one size fits all” for parks, he said.  

Hopkins said the landscape for parks planning began changing significantly in Manatee County about eight years ago, when development in the greater Lakewood Ranch area began a more amenity-driven approach to development. 

The change has relieved pressure on Manatee’s overall parks system, but the needs have not gone away completely. Neighbors of gated communities cannot use those amenities, and event gated communities may not offer every type of amenity its residents desire. A non-gated community may have a playground for young children, but not ballfields for their older siblings.

“There are still barriers,” Hopkins said. “We provide amenities outside the gates.”

Although G.T. Bray and Blackstone Parks are the busiest — and closest to the county’s urban core  — other facilities one day may become a hub for activity. For example, Bennett Park currently is underutilized, but it has space for improvements and will become more used as growth out east and along the Interstate 75 corridor continues. 

“You want to be proactive, not reactive,” Klepper said. 

Osborne also noted the county’s demographics have changed, so needs in various parts of the county may have changed as well. 

For example,  Manatee County’s Millennial Movement, a task force of millennial-aged Manatee Government employees formed in 2015,  revealed Millennials wanted areas in which to play Frisbee golf. Osborne said there are other amenities, such as BMX, a form of off-road bicycling, that do not currently exist in Manatee County that may be desired by the public. 

Through the master-planning process, which began in April, the parks department already has a list of desired projects — a fenced dog park in Braden River District Park and replaced tennis courts at Lakewood Ranch Park, for example— that will be funded through the new half-cent sales tax approved by voters in November. Tax dollars must fund repair and maintenance type projects, while impact fees are restricted to capacity-related improvements. 

Consultant Kimley-Horn and Associates, retained over the summer to assist in the planning exercise, will evaluate Manatee’s existing level of service standards, as part of the overall process. 

Once completed in the summer, the master plan will create new challenges, particularly how to fund and implement findings, but the document will give Manatee County a clear vision for its parks and recreation system.

“The plan identifies the direction we need to go,” Osborne said. “How we get there is up to the creativity of the community and the staff.”