photo by: Journal-World

The west side of the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St., is pictured on Sept. 23, 2021.

The team working to plot out an Open Space Plan for Douglas County is beginning to seek community input, one of a number of steps in the process to craft the plan by as soon as 2024.

The county announced a suite of public engagement strategies rolling out now and in the coming months in a press release Tuesday. Ultimately, feedback gathered from here will help to inform the county’s broad policy guide for prioritizing ecosystems and land uses like prairies, floodplain, agriculture, historic sites and trails.

A project team including county sustainability, zoning and codes and heritage conservation staff, environmental planning and design consulting firm Logan Simpson and communications strategists Coneflower Consulting aim to recommend a finalized version of the plan for adoption by the Douglas County Commission in May of 2024, according to the release.

For now, interested community members can provide feedback in a number of ways:

• Complete a 10-minute survey that can be found at dgcoks.org/openspace.

• Call a toll-free 24/7 hotline at 785-236-7415. Callers can leave a message with their open space ideas and hear stories from other community members.

• Participate in a photo challenge. Residents can submit photos by uploading them using a link at dgcoks.org/openspace for a chance to win a $100 gift card and the opportunity for their photo to be featured in the final plan.

• Attend a community engagement session. The project team and its advisory committee will host two sessions in early June. One meeting is set for Thursday, June 8, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St. The other is set for Friday, June 9, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the Lone Star Lake Community Building, 665 East 665 Road.

“We need places unaltered by mankind to connect, to find reprieve, to rest, to think, to energize and to recenter,” Douglas County Zoning and Codes Director Tonya Voigt said in the release. “My hope is this plan identifies places that nourish us as individuals and strengthen our sense of community (and) that it provides places where we can coexist with the natural, wild and free lands of Douglas County.”