The city of Elkhart hopes to strengthen its parks and recreation system, while also boosting the community’s health and wellness. A five-year master plan for Elkhart Parks & Recreation has been approved by the park board and city council.
Parks Superintendent Jamison Czarnecki says the plan was developed with a lot of community engagement, including public meetings, an educational series and an online survey. “Overall, they had suggested and seemed to be quite bought in on the idea of us bringing the parks out of the deferred maintenance,” Czarnecki said. “So really focusing in on investing into the parks was a big request.”
He said residents also wanted to see more recreational opportunities – things like bicycling and using the city’s waterways – along with sustainability. “People are really hoping to see more wildflowers and that our greenspaces are more ecologically sensitive to the environment, which was really interesting,” Czarnecki added.
Czarnecki said the plan not only looks at maintaining existing greenspaces, but also where to put new ones. He said the city’s southwest side is densely populated but has the least amount of park space. “So, there’s a deficit there that we want to try and fix,” Czarnecki said.
Some of the plan’s recommendations are more internal, like making sure the parks and recreation department is structured efficiently to maintain the facilities.
Having an updated five-year plan helps keep park departments eligible for state grant opportunities, but the amount of local funding for park projects remains to be seen, as cities like Elkhart assess the impact of Indiana’s property tax reform.
Czarnecki said the new plan doesn’t make specific funding commitments for capital projects. “This plan is really focusing on optimizing the operational capacities,” he explained. “It’s focusing on strengthening community connection and figuring out ways programmatically and through our infrastructure that we can focus in on the health and wellness of the community.”
He said the city is committed to continuing conversations with the community, as it looks for ways to implement the plan.
