Maitland plan could turn land into city parks

Maitland is more than 40 acres short of fulfilling the quota of desired parkland per resident set out in its master plan. But the answer to adding more parkland under the city’s purview could be as simple as changing a few sentences in its code to use land it already owns.

The current Parks Master Plan, which went into effect in 2002, sets the goal of the city having 5 acres of parkland – 2.5 acres of community park, and 2.5 acres of neighborhood park – per 1,000 residents. For its current population of 17,598, the city is 40 acres short of hitting that goal, according to numbers tabulated by the Parks & Recreation Master Plan Subcommittee.

“If you do the math…here today we stand at a deficit situation,” subcommittee member John Bauer told the City Council during its meeting on Monday, Dec. 12.

But, he and fellow subcommittee member Ellen Goldstein suggested a simple classification switch to get the city in compliance. Right now, the city only counts community and neighborhood parks – such as Lake Lily and Quinn Strong parks – when it tabulates its acreage. By broadening the definition of parkland to include different types of parks and open space, the subcommittee suggests that the city could reach a new goal of having 10 acres of parkland and open space per 1,000 residents – quadrupling its total classified parkland from 48 to 213 acres.

By including special-use parks like the Maitland Ballfield Complex, mini parks like Hamlet Park, school parks like those at Lake Sybelia and Maitland Middle, as well as natural resources areas, the city could actually reach a surplus of parkland by 3.8 acres in 2025 when the city’s population is predicted to hit 20,920.

“[The old] method of planning does not reflect the true value of the tremendous assets that the city already has in its possession,” Goldstein said.

The new plan, Bauer told the City Council, would be more of a distributed plan that would utilize all of the city’s parks instead of putting a focus on only a few.

“It's long overdue to be able to functionally utilize what we have and make it as good as it should be,” said Mayor Dale McDonald.

Changing the park acreage goal is one change of many proposed as part of the Parks & Recreation Master Plan 2.0 now in the works. After months of surveying residents and working with planning consultants, the Parks & Recreation Master Plan Subcommittee has updated a list of priorities for parks in Maitland. The biggest change since the plan was last updated over a decade ago: the strong desire for interconnectivity between parks.

According to feedback from residents, interconnectivity is just as important as improving the city’s existing parks.

“The residents of Maitland are very interested in being able to move to their parks and between their parks spaces,” Bauer said. “…They want to walk, ride their bikes and make it there without jumping in their car.”

Another top priority found throughout the resident surveys, is a desire for more expanded programing in the parks to add to the city’s existing special events and the Sunday farmers market.

“We’re looking to really take full use of all the properties the city currently has, within the parks system and throughout the city of Maitland,” Bauer said.

After receiving suitable feedback from the City Council on changing its acreage goals in the new master plan, Bauer and Goldstein said the subcommittee’s next steps will be to refine the list of improvements needed to address the city’s needs, and to come up with a price tag for those improvements before finalizing the new master plan next year.