MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - The newly released Mountain View Regional Parks, Recreation and Culture master plan has set out survey respondent priorities within Mountain View County (MVC), including encouraging community associations to undertake updated assessments of community halls.
The master plan resulted from a year of work by Expedition Management Consulting Ltd. (EMC) and a steering committee made up of representatives from MVC, the towns of Olds, Sundre, Carstairs and Didsbury, and the Village of Cremona. The process included surveys of residents, youths and local organizations.
The 149-page plan includes an assessment of the current state of parks, recreation and culture infrastructure and service delivery, recommended priorities to meet current and future needs, and a prioritized implementation plan designed to help guide decisions related to parks, recreation and culture in the participating municipalities.
The plan sets out seven MVC-specific priorities and related recommendations.
One priority is for the county to encourage community associations to conduct facility condition assessments and develop facility lifecycle plans for their respective communities.
“The main indoor service offering within the county borders is community halls, which are spread throughout the county serving local populations,” the plan states. “There is a need to better understand the current condition of halls in order to plan appropriately for the future.”
Another priority is for efforts to be made to determine the feasibility of undertaking a heritage assessment to better understand which buildings and landscapes strongly represent the area’s heritage and consider developing a heritage management and activation plan based on the findings of the heritage assessment.
Another priority is to determine the feasibility of developing additional public day-use areas and water/river access points in the county.
“Although there are some attractive parks in Mountain View County, overall there is a lack of supply of these types of assets, especially those that have water and particularly river access.”
Another priority is to consider working with municipal partners to expand provision of outdoor rinks and increase access for county residents.
“Several urban communities in the region offer this amenity and it is not anticipated that the county would directly develop more of these. There is an opportunity for the county to work with urban partners to further invest in these facilities.”
Another priority for consideration of working with municipal partners to expand provision of tennis/pickleball courts and increase assess for county residents.
“Tennis/pickleball courts were a top outdoor facility request from the resident survey.”
Implementation of the plan’s recommendations would be up to the individual councils of the participating municipalities.
