If you are a user of any of Airdrie’s parks or open spaces and want to provide input into how those are planned and developed, the City of Airdrie wants to hear from you.
“The Parks Development Team is updating our Great Places Plan,” Communications Advisor Jill Iverson said. “The Great Places Plan is a master plan for parks and open spaces, including sports fields, ball diamonds, pathways and off-leash dog parks.
“We had a master plan that was written about 10 years ago. Things have changed enough now that it definitely needs to be updated. They’re writing (the new plan) and it should last for the next 10 years so we’re looking fairly far into the future.”
Iverson will facilitate what she calls a “world café” or focus group on Oct. 20 and 27 in the Rotary Room at the Genesis Place Recreation Centre.
“Part of developing that plan is doing some public consultation and finding out what’s important to the people using the parks,” she said. “We need 25 people to come for both nights and we go through just a whole discovery.”
Iverson said the first night of the focus group will be spent primarily talking about the open spaces and parks currently in Airdrie.
“We talk about what we have today. What do you like? What do you not like? What’s working for us? What are we lacking? What do we have too much of? And then we go into a phase where we talk about what would you love it to look like in 10 years? Money’s no object, land’s not an object.”
The second evening will be spent bringing those dreams “back down to earth,” according to Iverson.
“We start to do some mapping, looking at where the parks should go. Do we need parks for bigger events? And then (the participants) start to just look at some actual planning, as much as a resident can do,” Iverson said. “Staff will take all the feedback that we get from that world café and that will help to write that final plan.”
Iverson, who has her certificate in public participation, will facilitate both evenings. However, Dnyanesh Deshpande from Planning Alliance – the consultant group working with the Parks Development Group on the project – will also attend.
The time commitment to be a participant in the focus groups is two and a half hours for each of the two nights – the sessions run from 6:30 to 9 p.m. – and joining in the conversation is open to any resident 18 years of age and up.
“If we have more than 25 people sign up, we’ll make sure that we have a good selection of someone who’s a path user, someone who’s passionate about the off-leash parks – we’ll make sure we cover all our bases off,” Iverson said.
“We understand it’s difficult for people to commitment to two nights but it will be an amazing experience for people to walk through this. They’re going to learn a lot about parks and open spaces and why and how they get developed.”
Anyone interested in signing up can email Iverson at [email protected] and include what they are passionate about and how they use the parks.
