The Coming Tsunami of Park Infrastructure Needs
Image via Unsplash.
Several years ago I heard Chuck Marohn speak about Strong Towns, and since then, I have studied the Strong Town principles and observed how we develop our communities. Having worked in local government, I have an inside perspective of how communities grow and what the funding priorities are. Over my 40-year career in parks and recreation, I worked for two mid-sized counties: Knox County, Tennessee, and St. Johns County, Florida. Both had two things in common: high growth and limited funding.
It’s no secret that parks, while very popular with citizens, end up on the short end of funding equation when competing with schools, roads, law enforcement, and fire departments. Our development patterns have a trickle-down effect on all government services. With new growth comes the demand for new services and facilities from schools to libraries to parks. In parks there is a constant competition to fund the new facilities while deferring maintenance and capital replacement for existing facilities. Everyone likes to see new facilities, and even the most fiscally conservative leader enjoys an occasional ribbon cutting—by contrast, there’s not much that’s exciting about repaving parking lots and replacing HVAC systems.
As this pattern continues, the #DoTheMath Strong Towns concept applies. In one year of looking deeper into the Maintenance, Repair, and Replacement list for St. Johns County, we went from $1.7 million to $6.9 million in projects. This did not cover large replacements of park infrastructure that needed to be included in a capital plan. As many of our parks start to age into their 40s and 50s, the demand will continue to grow. Lighting, drainage structures, and parking lots will need to be rebuilt.
Image via WikiCommons.
Both counties had over 80 athletic fields. Athletic fields cost $1 million to $1.5 million per field to build new, when including the field, lighting, fencing, parking, access roads, restrooms, and sidewalks. A new field lighting system averages $250,000 per field. A little quick math when you look at aging-out lighting systems reveals that in the future, we will need to start replacing at least four fields every two years for a cost of $1 million. The total Maintenance, Repair, and Replacement allocation for the entire parks system in St. Johns County was $2.4 million last year. I have not yet done a spreadsheet for future replacement costs for an entire park system. Frankly, I’m a little scared to see it.
If the growth rate continues and funding levels stay where they are, I do believe there will be a future tsunami of infrastructure needs similar to the current needs for our roads and bridges. Building yet more parks to accommodate our growth patterns will exacerbate the problem.
One of the problems for local government is that we tend to think in 5-year plans. I have never been in a budget meeting when 30 or 60-year projections were discussed. Most capital plans and comprehensive park master plans tend to look at future growth, and although an inventory of facilities is usually completed during the master plan process, studies to determine lifecycle costs for replacement of existing park infrastructure are not included. As I have shared Strong Towns concepts with local leaders, I hope that some of them start to consider “doing the math” on future park needs.
Doug Bataille is a parks and recreation professional with 28 years as a director, including in Knox County, Tennessee, and St. Johns County, Florida. He also served as President of the Tennessee Recreation and Parks Association, is a Leadership Knoxville graduate and facilitator, and helped create the Legacy Parks Foundation. In the next chapter of his life, he is hoping to consult in parks and community design and planning. You can connect with Doug and other Tennessee Strong Towns advocates in the Strong Towns TN Facebook group.