photo by: Bremen Keasey

The Parks, Recreation and Culture department’s new “playbook” — full of plans for generating more revenue and upgrading amenities like parks, playgrounds and trails — is now on its way to the Lawrence City Commission for final approval.

Earlier this month, two city advisory boards signed off on the department’s new master plan. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board approved it on Feb. 10, and the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission signed off on Wednesday night. With their approval, the plan is expected to go before the City Commission for a final vote during a meeting in March.

Luis Ruiz, the Parks, Recreation and Culture director, said during the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting that the master plan will serve “as a playbook” for the department to make decisions during a time of uncertain funding. The department faced budget cuts as part of the final 2025 city budget, leading to reductions in its programming, and Ruiz said the plan would help the department set priorities and sustain the city’s parks and cultural amenities as well as possible.

“This will guide us for the next few years in an intentional way,” Ruiz said.

One key focus of the master plan is how the department can generate more revenue. Some of its recommendations include creating a pricing policy, which could include different pricing models for programming for residents and nonresidents; adding a position to the department that would seek out partnerships, sponsorships or grants to fund park programs; using part of the city’s tax on hotel stays to support programming; and establishing a foundation for the department to generate private funding through donations.

None of the financial recommendations would happen immediately. Instead, they would be options the department could explore as long as there was appetite from the public and the City Commission to implement the changes.

The plan also maps out the department’s priorities, which were determined with the help of community feedback efforts. Some of the top priorities are adding more walking and biking trails; updating existing park facilities; upgrading playgrounds for better safety and accessibility; and preserving and expanding passive nature areas.

The master plan serves as a checklist of sorts to achieve those goals, said Mark Hecker, an assistant director with Parks, Recreation and Culture. The master plan includes a long list of recommendations, including not only smaller fixes at the various parks and facilities, but also some much bigger long-term projects like possibly adding a new outdoor pool. Those lists provide a good framework for the department to see which projects can be tackled year by year, Hecker said.

Part of the reason for an updated master plan is that, since 2022, the department has been responsible for arts and culture programming in addition to parks and recreation.

Porter Arneill, an assistant director with the department, began working in Lawrence on the arts and culture side. He said he was always told that Lawrence was an “arts and culture town,” but no one had really nailed down what that meant. Arneil felt the recommendations in the plan — including one that calls for formalizing the city’s public art program as a city ordinance — help define that and “set a trajectory” to maintain the city’s cultural identity.

Daniel Smith, the chair of the Cultural Arts Commission, said he was a fan of the master plan and it contained items that would be a positive for the department and Lawrence residents.

“I think there’s some really good stuff on there and things that will allow our community to make big steps forward,” Smith said.