Wenatchee Park, Recreation, & Open Space Plan
Wenatchee Parks & Recreation Department and East Douglas County Park & Recreation District, Wenatchee and East Wenatchee, Washington

We completed joint comprehensive park, recreation, and open space plans and capital improvement programs for the Wenatchee Parks Department and East Douglas County Park & Recreation District. The planning efforts created the first integrated city, park district, and school district plans for the urban areas on both sides of the Columbia River conforming with the provisions of the Growth Management Act (GMA) and new Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation (IAC) criteria for wildlife habitat management.

Both agencies wanted to determine future open space, facility, and program requirements for the urban area straddling the Columbia River and jurisdictional areas that accounted for existing and available resources. Both agencies also wanted to create integrated long-range facility and financing strategies for regional facilities that would not duplicate agency efforts.

We conducted extensive public participation programs involving citizen planning committees, technical agency staff task forces, intercept questionnaires of park site users, public forums, and open houses to determine interest in a regional planning approach. We also conducted mail-out/phone-back surveys of registered voters in Wenatchee and in the East Douglas County Park District to determine final project proposals and financing preferences.

Based on the phone-back survey results, our resulting strategies proposed to fund an integrated system of swimming pools, ice rinks, multipurpose trails, and competitive athletic fields using inter-local agreements and fund sharing systems.