Lower Burrell eyes master plan for parks, meeting scheduled this month

Lower Burrell residents should keep an eye out for park plans and ideas this month.

Last Monday, planner Carolyn Yagle of Environmental Planning & Design LLC in Pittsburgh provided an update on Lower Burrell’s parks master plan.

The study, which began last year, includes an inventory of the city parks and recreational areas, and feedback from residents to determine what they want to see in the city’s parks. The city received a $20,000 grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to develop the plan, and officials hired Environmental Planning & Design to draft it.

The company’s contract is for $35,000, and the city will provide $5,000 for in-kind services and $10,000 from its park funds.

Yagle said a description of the plan — a “story map” — will be available on the city’s website by Wednesday, June 14. It will include information on facilities, programming, maintenance, operations and proposed plans over the next 10 years, Yagle said.

People also can make comments and recommendations on the information listed on the website.

That plan description will preview a public meeting on the parks plan set for June 26.

“This site is giving them (a) prelude to the meeting; some things that they can get their questions ready, or come and make comments between now and then, so that we can come to the public meeting and have some answers or have some direction to those things,” Yagle said.

Yagle said the website also has an “action summary” tab, where officials can update their strategies over time as needs and priorities change.

“The intent of this plan in this format is so that, you, as a city … have a couple of different places where you’re just going to be able to continuously update people on the progress of this,” Yagle said. “The other part of this is that as you make your progress and you are going after grants … you’re going to be able to share this link with any funder. And they’re going to be able to see all this information in one place.”

Having the plan is a better opportunity for the city as officials seek grant funding for improvements and projects, Yagle said.

Council members thought highly of the presentation.

“It’s such an important thing for the city to have long-term planning with everything that we do, and this is another avenue with that,” Councilman Chris Fabry said.

He agreed that having a “living” comprehensive plan in place would better assist the city as it pursues grant funding in the future.

“You can have a list of things, or you can have a plan. And there’s a big difference whenever it comes to the reporting or the awarding of the grants,” Fabry said. “And by us actually having a plan in place where we already have this structure, we already have this roadway path to success. That’s a better opportunity for us to get those additional funds.”