Parks Plan
Submitted by Jim Byrne
Clark County Parks and Nature is in a precarious position right now. There are large deficiencies in budget compared to the national median of similar sized counties. Funding is problematic. Due to the age of the system, continued growth and increased use levels, the need for capital expenditures on existing facilities continue to outpace that available for both staff and financial resources.
Clark County’s Parks System Plan—known as the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space (PROS) Plan—was originally developed in 2014–2015 and updated in 2020–2021, with the revised plan adopted by the County Council in April 2022. Surveys presented in that plan documented strong preferences for providing recreational trails (the highest priority, with 42% saying it should be the highest priority and 90% saying it is one of the top three priorities). Nature-based play space, unpaved trails in natural areas, paved shared-use trails, and trail amenities such as restrooms and parking ranking highly as priorities.
Lacamas Lillies Photo from Clark County Parks and Nature
During the PROS Plan’s public outreach process, the community expressed a preference for Level of Service (LOS) goals for each park classification: regional parks, community parks, neighborhood parks, and urban natural areas. In the currently adopted PROS Plan, LOS is measured as the number of developed or undeveloped park acres per 1,000 residents, calculated separately for each park type. Using this criteria for LOS, the current PROS Plan identifies deficiencies across all categories.
While community parks, neighborhood parks, and urban natural areas can be acquired and developed using Park Impact Fee (PIF) funds, addressing deficiencies in regional parkland is more challenging because the county currently lacks a dedicated funding source for regional acquisitions and development.
A metropolitan park district taxing authority was authorized in 2005, within the unincorporated urban area of the city of Vancouver (VUUA). The tax rate was set at a maximum of $0.27 per $1,000 of assessed property value (currently $0.13. It is anticipated the County will rely on this fund, with citizen approval to close the deficit in LOS. Or the county could expand the metropolitan park district to cover the entire County. FOCC will be advocating to improve the Parks and Nature budget when given the opportunity.