The City of Windsor finally has a master plan to guide park development over the next 20 years.
City council voted to adopt it Monday night. It's called 'Rediscover Our Parks' and it makes 104 recommendations including consolidating sports complexes, reclassifying parks to better management them, and even seeking a UNESCO designation for the Ojibway Complex. Executive Director of Parks, Phil Roberts says it took two years to put together.
The last one was adopted in 1989, and a lot has changed since then.
"Back in 1989, nobody talked about dog parks."
Another significant change has been immigration, and Roberts says that's changed the way parks are used.
"This is a place where you might not just use a splash pad and go home," he says. "You would use the splash pad, and play soccer, and you would picnic and hold family gatherings."
He says that's why reclassifying some parks makes sense. If organized sports were grouped together, the city could reclaim neighbourhood parks for more passive play.
Roberts also has big plans for Jackson Park, which was ranked number two for which parks residents loved the most after only the riverfront.
BlackburnNews.com file photo of Jackson Park in Windsor. (Photo courtesy City of Windsor)
"There's a great opportunity for Jackson to not only consolidate against some parks resources," says Roberts. "One of the elements is to create more botanical features in Jackson, potentially even moving the Lanspeary greenhouses from Lanspeary Park to Jackson and making them public spaces."
The next step will be to come up with an action plan which would include a list of priorities and costing over the next two decades.
Roberts also says being a master plan; there's room to be flexible since the city is likely to change dramatically before the next master plan is adopted, maybe sometime in the 2030s.
