Long-range parks vision approved
SANTA CRUZ >> City leaders on Tuesday unanimously approved the first update to the city’s longterm parks plans in nearly half a century.
“W hile I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a trying year for all of us, for those of us in parks and recreation, it has also been an invigorating year because we have seen how much our community depends on the parks that we steward and the services that we provide,” city
Superintendent of Parks Travis Beck told the Santa Cruz City Council. “Even during the strictest weeks of the lockdown, people f looded into our open spaces and beaches. Even when we closed our parks and amenities within them, people continued to use them. This validates what we have always felt, which is that it is critical that we maintain our parks well and we continue to invest in them.”
The Parks Master Plan 2030 and a study of its related overarching environmental impacts has undergone years of review and three separate drafts. The document itself, encompassing more than 1,700 acres of city land, does not give final approval for any projects, but merely sets the stage for future planning and allows the city to apply for grant funding.
At the plan’s 11th hour, the final major sticking point had centered on the city’s Pogonip park space and whether new trails should or could be added there. For longtime activists working to protect the Pogonip green space, lobbying by the area’s Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz County to build new multiuse trails served as a rallying cry. The master plan calls for the city to conduct a trails assessment as a priority within five years.
Vice Mayor Donna Meyers, who previously served on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission, made the motion to approve the plan. She said the city had already missed out on past grant opportunities during the plan’s prolonged development.
“I think it’s an important strategic policy decision that we have to make tonight to really make our Parks Department competitive with other parks departments around California, frankly,” Meyers said. “I recognize the concern from both the public and my fellow council members about whether or not we really have the proper CEQ A (California Environmental Quality Act) approach, but I do believe that this is a solid approach and I trust out Parks department will do the proper CEQ A analysis as projects get proposed, according to the plan.”