Bill Spalding
HANCOCK COUNTY — Leaders plan to take a closer look at creating a county park system.
The Hancock County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to enter into an agreement not to exceed $8,000 to kick off that deeper dive with PROS Consulting, a Brownsburg-based parks and recreation management consulting firm.
Commissioner Bill Spalding said outdoor amenities are starting to become more of a necessity in the county.
“We talk about quality of place, quality of life, and that’s part of what we need,” Spalding said. “Plus we’re growing at a rate with trails and other things, it just seems to be the right direction to go in.”
Leon Younger, president of PROS Consulting, has led parks and recreation for four different park systems throughout the U.S., including in Indianapolis under former Mayor Steve Goldsmith.
“Typically when you do a county park system you’re looking at preservation,” Younger told the Hancock County commissioners earlier this week. “Most county park systems are going to build around larger community and regional parks, so they’re really more focused on corridors, stream corridors, natural areas that need to be preserved or protected, as well as the ability to provide county parks that city parks typically don’t provide. There’s usually destination facilities built around natural resources as well as trails; a lot of county park systems really focus on trail systems as a major connection to various cities in other communities in the county.”
The firm will conduct an assessment to help officials determine if there’s a need for a county park system. Younger said that will start with public engagement among key people and leaders in the county to learn their concerns, what they feel important issues are, what they would like to see, what they would like to avoid and the various levels of importance they place on those topics. The firm would then report back to officials with the information gathered.
If the commissioners want to move forward after that process, a county-wide survey would follow. Younger said that would seek feedback including what kinds of amenities respondents would like to see, their willingness to support different amenities, what kinds of programs and services would complement those amenities and partnerships that should be engaged.
The survey process would take a couple months, Younger continued, adding it could be broken up into different sections of the county. He said that based on the county’s population of about 80,000, about 600 return surveys following the county’s demographics would be ideal, which would result in a cost of between about $18,000 to $20,000. Surveys would be able to be conducted by mail, online and over the phone, including in foreign languages.
All of the efforts would culminate in a written report addressing how all of the information gathered would translate into the development of a county park system, Younger said.
Surveys would be conducted with residents in the county’s municipalities and unincorporated areas. Marc Huber, a county commissioner, worries feedback would be far different from those living in more densely populated areas than less densely populated ones and could result in skewed data. He said those who live in Greenfield and the county’s towns who already have more access to parks and trails would likely view the subject more favorably. Those in more rural areas may not be as welcoming knowing that potential future outdoor amenities could encroach on their properties, he continued.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have some feel-good out in the county, instead of just paying for jails and police officers, everything it takes to make the county run,” Huber said. “It’d be nice to have something that everybody enjoyed going to. But at the end of the day, it’s hard to justify running a walking trail up through the middle of the county where there’s not much density, or having a park. I think you’ve got to be strategic about where you put them.”
John Jessup, also a county commissioner, said officials have been mulling a county park system for a while. It starts to become more feasible, he continued, after more funding opportunities arise like those resulting from economic development agreements with builders behind big projects.
“We’re just exploring opportunities to see where we could provide more,” he said. “As our population grows, you’ve got to start thinking about it.”
