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September 21, 2008

City set to engineer blueprint for parks

By Kelly Young

kyoung@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Earlier this summer, the Jacksonville City Council contracted with Mark Spencer of MHS Planning & Design to develop a comprehensive Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan for the city. Now that the city’s seven-member Parks Master Plan Committee has been formed, Mayor Robert Haberle expects the process of constructing the plan to go quickly.

“Mark is going to develop, along with the input of the committee, a parks master plan for the whole city, which will include our entire parks system and all open green space. It will be a very comprehensive outdoor plan which will carry us for the next 10 to 15 years,” Haberle said. “It is going to include everything from Nichols Green to the city’s baseball/softball/soccer complex to the amphitheater at Love’s Lookout.”

As part of his contract, Spencer will be obtaining recent maps and demographic data, conducting interviews with the city staff, directing a resident survey and gathering aerial photographs of the city. The master plan will include plans for future land acquisition, proposed facility improvements broken down into phases and cost projections for any proposed improvements.

Due to his familiarity with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Spencer will also be assisting the city in it’s application for up to $500,000 in grant funds. If the grant is received, the city plans to use it to completely renovate the baseball complex.

“The grant will require some form of match from the city, but we don’t know how much at this time. We have already had a discussion with the Jacksonville Economic Development Corporation to work with us on the matching portion of those funds,” the mayor said. “The city paid $28,000 for the master plan, and the tentative agreement is, since we paid for the plan, JEDCO will cover the lion’s share of the grant matching. It will be a good partnership for the benefit of the community as a whole.”

The parks master plan was paid for on last year’s budget using a portion of the money saved because the city didn’t have to spray chemicals on Lake Jacksonville to combat the hydrilla.

Haberle said, to his knowledge, the city has had no other comprehensive parks plans in the past. He said the purpose of the plan is to improve and beautify Jacksonville’s green spaces in order to improve the quality of life here and to encourage increased eco-tourism to this area.

“If we can get this thing together and implement it, I think we can really add to the quality of life in Jacksonville. We happen to be nestled in a beautiful geographical location between Dallas, Shreveport and Houston, and those people look for a place where they can enjoy a comfortable outdoor setting,” Haberle said. “By improving and beautifying our green spaces, public areas and parks, we add to our eco-tourism appeal and bring new opportunities for economic growth to town, from a tourism standpoint.”

The next meeting of the Parks Master Plan Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 23. The completed master plan is expected to be prepared in to next two to three months.

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