WESTLOCK — A draft of the Town of Westlock’s parks and recreation master plan is now complete and residents will have a chance to look it over and provide feedback during an open house April 16.
The event takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Rotary Spirit Centre and will include a display of the draft plan, presented on panels that will highlight key areas of the project including the research and engagement findings and information considered, as well as detail the plan’s foundations and strategic directions.
The parks and recreation master plan is a strategic document that will guide the development, delivery and improvement of parks and recreation programs, services, and facilities in the town for the next 20 years and was included in the 2023-2028 capital budget.
The open house is the final phase of public engagement, which also included message boards at several locations for residents to provide feedback and surveys that were also conducted last summer and fall.
Town councillors were given an overview of the master plan in February, when Michael Roma and Robert Parks of RC Strategies presented the draft document.
“This (open house) is presenting the draft and is an opportunity for us to close the loop with the community and people that have participated in contributing to the master plan,” said director of community services Gerry Murphy. “…to show them what we came up with based on the input they already provided. This is also another opportunity for folks to provide further input and feedback on the draft of the master plan.”
Murphy noted this is the first parks and recreation master plan the Town of Westlock has ever undertaken.
“This parks and recreation master plan provides a guiding document and identifies community priorities for future capital projects and also for the allocation of resources moving forward,” he said, adding that most communities have a parks and recreation master plan and it’s something the town and councillors have been looking to provide residents for a while.
“We’re pretty happy to bring this forward and show it to the public and to get further input.”
Murphy said the master plan was the result of input from stakeholders, individuals and community groups. That input went into producing two reports — the research report and the “what we heard” report.
“It was quite a process and I think that everyone in the community had an opportunity to have input, whether they were individual residents or they were part of a community group or a sports club,” explained Murphy. “We did lots of interviews, the did the online surveys and the in-person surveys.”
Following the open house, the final draft of the parks and recreation master plan will return to council for approval in the coming weeks.
“We are hoping to get quite a few people out to have a look at it,” said Murphy. “The residents of Westlock really value their recreation, they value the amenities that we have for them in the town and they’re vested in seeing them maintained and improved.”
