Charlottesville City Council took a break from the FY26 budget at its March 17 meeting to review the Parks & Recreation Master Plan. The agenda will inform what the city does for the next decade, with the first financial allocations expected next year.
Community feedback and demographic research was prioritized in the master plan, created through a collaboration between the city and PROS Consulting. According to the demographic analysis, approximately 84 percent of Charlottesville residents live within a 10-minute walk to a park, with 45 acres of parks per 1,000 residents—both figures well above the national average for urban areas.
Recommendations from the plan include expanding the shared-use path system within the city, which would increase connectivity between parks, pools, and recreation facilities. Under the capital improvement plan framework recommended, spending for the project is organized into three tiers: sustainable projects, expanded service projects, and visionary projects. The cost estimate for the 10-year plan totals $78,179,672.
Multiple funding strategies beyond public funding were noted in the master plan, and include general obligation bonds and grants.
Though council was broadly supportive, the finer details of the parks plan remain a future matter.
“I want to make sure, if we embrace the broad concepts of this plan, that we are not necessarily committing ourselves to the things that would happen six to 10 years down the road, which will not have been the product of detailed study,” said City Councilor Lloyd Snook.
“The idea was we went through an intensive kind of park-by-park improvement exercise, and incorporated a lot of different data points,” responded Mike Svetz with PROS Consulting. Rather than a list of must-dos for the city, he said the recommendations further down the line were included as “opportunities and ideas around which you can improve your park system as being intentional about incorporating and listening to the community as well as staff as well as other consultants.”
Closing out his presentation during the 4pm session, Svetz said an investment in parks supports more than just facilities.
“Parks that are activated, parks that are used for the right reasons, parks that are productive, end up being parks that don’t get used for the wrong reasons,” he said. “The investment in parks actually is an investment in public safety as well.”
During the 6:30pm public hearing and resolution, several community members voiced both concern and support for the parks plan.
Jackie Temkin, a business owner and city resident, called on council to put concrete plans into place to address the inequity in Parks & Recreation partnerships. “There’s been a big issue for supporting women’s sports,” she said. “There’s maybe one sport now, girl’s basketball, for the first time in 2025, that Parks & Recreation is giving a partnership to girls’ sports—it’s not addressed in any of this. I think the word ‘female’ appears four times in 300 pages. … Not just saying we need to do better, but actually a plan on how to do better to reach different members of the community, including women.”
Cultivate Charlottesville’s Aleen Carey said she was concerned about the potential gentrification of Washington Park through the suggested conversion of a softball field into a dog park.
City Council will next consider the Parks & Rec Master Plan as an action item at its April 7 meeting.
Charlottesville City Council will consider the Parks & Rec Master Plan as an action item at its April 7 meeting. Photo by Eze Amos.
