As Salt Lake City residents, we all want our City to be the very best place to live, work and play in the country. Right now, we have an unprecedented opportunity to develop as a community, a once-in-a-generation plan for revitalizing and dramatically expanding our parks, trails and open space offerings.
Salt Lake City is conducting a broad and inclusive public engagement process throughout May to generate ideas and seek feedback about what people value most about parks, trails and open space in Salt Lake City and about specific projects they’d like the City to invest in.
You Spoke, We Listened
The City has been listening! More than 300 open houses and community events have been held during recent planning processes. Some 3,500 comments and 3,000 surveys from those efforts have helped to identify what the public wants to see.
As a starting point for this project, we reviewed the public input gathered during these recent master plans, which clearly tells us that Salt Lake City residents cherish their unparalleled and close connection to nature and outdoor recreation. Now, we would like to have a more specific conversation with our community about next steps.
What is this all about? Why is the City doing this now?
The Salt Lake City Council Priorities and the Mayor’s Livability Agenda both speak directly to the importance of maintaining and improving our open spaces, trails and parks. A well-developed network of parks, trails and open spaces improves livability and quality of life for current residents, encourages new residents to make their home in the City, and supports valuable business-recruitment and economic development opportunities.
As part of a plan to ensure the long-term stability of the City’s golf course program, the City Council voted recently to repurpose Glendale Golf Course and the Jordan River Par 3 Golf Course – both of which can provide amazing new open space opportunities for the City. Glendale alone is over 160 acres of land, finding a new use for this space that everyone can enjoy is a big part of what we want to hear input from you on.
Early in this effort, we reviewed over 25 recent planning documents. These documents included Plan Salt Lake, the West Side Master Plan, the Bicycle/Pedestrian Master Plan, the 9 Line and many more. In reviewing all of the comments and feedback about parks, trails and open space we saw high interest in the following categories.
Parks and Open Space
- Including things like:
- Creating new recreation opportunities
- Repurposing Glendale and Jordan River Par 3 golf courses, and other existing facilities
- Adding innovative new programming such as pickle ball, whitewater parks or other emerging recreational sports
Trails and Urban Connections
- Including things like:
- Creating new mountain bike trails and connections in the foothills
- Connecting existing paved trails
- Creating new pedestrian walkways
Sustainability Projects
- Including things like
- Converting to secondary water
- Restoration of riparian corridors
- Water wise planting
Join the Conversation
The completion of several major planning studies, strong interest in preserving our foothills, an immediate opportunity to change the use of two City golf courses, and other motivators, means now is the ideal time for the public to share their ideas and priorities to help guide how we invest in and improve our parks, open spaces and trails. Salt Lake City has a good parks and recreation system; we have the chance to make it great!
Salt Lake City is hosting seven public events in the month of May. Take a look at the map below and decide which one best fits your schedule. We look forward to seeing you there. Please call 801-910-5356 for more information or visit their site here.
