photo by: Nick Krug

City of Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department

An improved Kansas River corridor, more small parks, an outdoor amphitheater and botanical gardens were listed as some of the most-desired future parks and recreation facilities in surveys of nearly 2,000 Lawrence residents.

GreenPlay LLC, a city-hired consulting firm, presented results of two surveys Tuesday to the Parks and Rec Advisory Board and a 16-member steering committee tasked with putting together a new, 10-year master plan for the parks and recreation department. The master plan will replace one created in 2000 and include a “vision” for the department and ideas to fund new facilities and programs, said Pat O’Toole, a principal with GreenPlay.

“The toughest part of this master plan is the news you read from the city council, that there’s no money,” O’Toole told a group of about 30 people Tuesday. “And we’re here talking about spending money.”

O’Toole referred to the ongoing process to create Lawrence’s 2017 budget, which includes cuts to some city personnel and partially unfunded requests from outside agencies and city departments.

In the city manager’s recommended budget, Parks and Recreation would receive about $2.2 million more in 2017 than it did this year, for a total of about $13.3 million. Some of the increase is set aside for more staff and contractual services to treat or remove and replace ash trees, which are being decimated by the infestation of the Emerald Ash Borer.

At a City Commission work session later Tuesday, Vice Mayor Leslie Soden suggested scaling back in 2017 the plan to combat the Emerald Ash Borer as a means to put money toward other city services or programs.

While funding is tight for the 2017 budget, O’Toole noted, “We have to vision some, but we do want to be realistic.”

“This is a 10-year plan,” he said of the new master plan. “Do we put nothing new in there because we don’t have the money now? No.”

Roger Steinbrock, who heads up marketing for Parks and Rec, reiterated that sentiment to city commissioners Tuesday night when proclaiming July as “Parks and Recreation Month.”

“We’re looking to the future with our Parks and Rec master plan, and we know we have to be sensible, with the budgets as they are, but it’s also time to dream as a community and look at the needs, wants and desires,” Steinbrock said. “That’s what this master plan will do for us for the next 10 years.”

GreenPlay mailed surveys to 4,000 households, including owners and renters, in June. They received back 588, or 15 percent, which exceeded the firm’s 10 percent goal. Besides that random, statistically-valid survey, the city also posted an online survey open to anyone to fill out. It got 1,382 responses.

Here are some of the results:

• When asked what facilities most met peoples’ needs already, the most-selected were: Prairie Park Nature Center, community parks and Sports Pavilion Lawrence.

photo by: Nick Krug

Twelve-year-old Avion Nelson comes in for a dunk against former Kansas forward Jamari Traylor during Ben McLemore and Andrew Wiggins' Kansas All-Star Basketball Camp on Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at Sports Pavilion Lawrence.

• Many respondents answered they’d like more community events, fitness classes, nature programs and hobby programs.

• The most-named improvements people would like to see made to existing facilities were: adding and connecting trails; adding restrooms in parks and on trails; and providing trail security lighting.

• Besides improvements to the Kansas River corridor and adding small parks, an outdoor amphitheater and botanical gardens, respondents suggested an adventure park, a new outdoor pool and large picnic shelters.

• Of the options on funding Parks and Rec facilities and programs, those surveyed most supported using a portion of the Transient Guest Tax, the 6 percent tax the city collects on all overnight hotel stays.

The second-most supported funding idea was to ask Lawrence residents to voluntarily round up their utility bills to the next dollar. O’Toole said money generated through those types of programs were “substantial as an option, but nothing to hang your hat on.”

“It won’t build a facility,” he said.

The least-desired funding options were an increase in property tax and increasing fees for classes and other recreational services.

City Manager Tom Markus said last week when releasing his recommended 2017 budget that he wanted departments to review their fees annually and “stay paced with the cost of services.”

With survey results in hand, GreenPlay and the steering committee have begun putting together recommendations for what should be included in the plan. The ideas will be publicly presented to the Parks and Rec Advisory Board in late August, and the City Commission will see a draft in September. A final presentation will be brought to commissioners in October for a vote.