| Park Plan Gives Overview of City, County |
Photo courtesy of Jon Gustin
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After much public participation and comments, the Knoxville-Knox County Comprehensive Park, Recreation and Greenways Plan should be ready for adoption in early summer. This document marks the first time the city of Knoxville and Knox County have created a joint plan for parks, recreation and greenway trails.
Knox County currently has 5,881 acres of usable park land. This includes city, county, Town of Farragut, and state parks as well as quasi-public recreation land provided by private entities. MPC staff inventoried a total of 213 parks, of these 67 are school parks. There are currently 35 greenway trails in both the city and county that provide more than 50 miles of trails, excluding small loops within parks.
Before developing the plan, the city and county hosted eight public meetings to allow residents to voice their likes, dislikes and their vision for the future. MPC also conducted a web-based survey in addition to a survey of more than 280 high school students.
More, comprehensive connected greenways were the greatest request from the public. This plan addresses that request by proposing almost 400 miles of greenways throughout Knox County.
With population projected to reach 525,940 by 2030, it was a priority of the plan to set aside the open spaces for the parks needed within Knox County to serve this future population before it becomes too costly or valuable in other types of use.
Since the most significant cost of creating new parks is land acquisition, the plan recommends first looking at existing public resources and land for their potential use for parks and recreational facilities. More funding could then go towards the cost of providing amenities.
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Photos courtesy of Kathleen Gibi. |
This plan contains recommendations for each of the six city sector plans and each of the six county sector plans. Each sector plans gives recommendations for existing parks, proposed parks, proposed greenways and proposed recreation centers. The plan does not make recommendations as to the specific activities within each park facility, but rather generally notes the type of facility needed to serve citizens.
A public meeting was then held on March 10 to get opinions on people’s satisfaction with the plan. The draft could then be modified based on public suggestions from the more than 120 people that attended the meeting and from the online survey conducted during February and March.
MPC staff also will create a short term plan for capital improvement funding during the next five years before bringing the updated draft to MPC for adoption. Once approved, the document will go to the City Council and County Commission for adoption.
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