The document discusses parks and open space planning and critical/sensitive areas planning. It provides details on: 1) Reasons for parks/open space plans including providing public functions before development. 2) Components of plans including goals, legal requirements, supply inventories, demand assessments, and alternatives. 3) Implementation includes identifying responsibilities, partners, timing, costs, and evaluations. 4) Critical/sensitive areas plans identify and protect natural resources from excessive development through descriptions, maps, analyses, and protection policies and strategies.

1. Kandahar university
Engineering faculty
Architectural department
Course: Fundamental of Urban planning
Lecture 6: Parks and open-space plans

2. Table of Contents
PARKS AND OPEN-SPACE PLANS
Reasons to prepare a parks and open-space plan
Approaches to the plan
Plan components
Implementation
Design guidelines for park systems
Critical and sensitive areas plans
Reasons to prepare a critical and sensitive areas plan
PLAN COMPONENTS

3. PARKS AND OPEN-SPACE PLANS

4. PARKS AND OPEN-SPACE PLANS
• A parks and open-space plan outlines a systematic approach to providing parks and recreation
services to a community.
• Parks and open-space resources within a community include
 Environmental
 Recreational
 Cultural
 Historic
 Urban design elements.
• Planning for parks and open space takes place at
 National
 State
 And local levels.

5. Reasons to prepare a parks and open-space
plan
Communities need to plan for open spaces that provide a multitude of public
functions before development occurs.
 These functions are numerous and may include:
• Protection of natural resources and biodiversity
• Creation of places for recreation
• Support for economic development opportunities
• Development of neighborhood gathering places
• Promotion of public health benefits
• Creation of civic and cultural infrastructure
• Shaping patterns of development through open spaces.

6. Approaches to the plan
Park and open-space plans are influenced by the following factors:
• Agency or departmental mandate and mission
• Parks and open-space definition
• Park classifications
• Parks standards
• Development and management policies

7. Plan components
• The majority of parks and open-space plans include the following elements.
• Consult applicable statutes and agency mandates to determine required plan
components.

8. 1) Goals and objectives
• Typical expressions of parks and open space goals and objectives consider the
following:
• QUANTITY
• PROXIMITY
• ACCESSIBILITY
• DISTRIBUTION
• EQUITY

9. 1) Goals and objectives (Cont.)
• Environmental protection
• Coordination:
• balance:
• shaping
• Sustainability
• urban design
• Connections

10. 2) LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
The plan should include a review of laws that might be applicable to the lands
or facilities included in the plan.
These typically include:
• Federal, state, and local environmental protection regulations;
• Federal, state, and local parkland preservation regulations;
• Historic buildings and landscapes regulations; and
• The Americans with disabilities act (ADA) regulations

11. 3) Supply inventory
A park and open-space plan contains a set of inventories related to the park
plan elements and functions.
 This includes a list of park sites, their size, the facilities and equipment at each
site, the function each site serves, site photos, and an assessment of the
condition of the site.
• Endangered species habitats
• School sites with playgrounds
• Public and private golf courses
• Waterways and floodplains
• Vacant lots
• Trails
• Private recreational facilities (e.G., Ice rinks, tennis clubs)

12. 3) SUPPLY INVENTORY (CONT.)
• Bike lanes on highways
• Historical sites
• Cemeteries
• Gravel mines
• Private campgrounds
• Scenic view sheds
• Country clubs
• Boulevards

13. Demand assessment
Most demand assessments are a combination of general data, such as
demographic trends or physiographic resources, and specific community
information gleaned from public participation mechanisms.
The needs assessment for parks and open spaces can be initially organized by
function:
• Recreation function
• Conservation function
• Community shaping function
• Additional functions

14. 4) Surpluses and deficiencies analysis
• A comparison of the demand and supply data yields a surpluses and
deficiencies analysis.
• The results may be expressed in terms of acreage, facilities, or other forms
dictated by the various functions of the system.

15. 5) Alternatives and draft plan
• After completion of the surpluses and deficiencies analysis, planners should
generate a number of plan alternatives to correct the deficiencies identified by
the analysis.
• The scenarios should address the creation of new park areas, the renovation of
existing park areas, the linking together of parks, and the required connections
to other plans to achieve park and open-space goals.

16. Implementation
1. Identify what will be accomplished.
2. Identify the party responsible for accomplishing the goal.
3. Identify any partners involved in implementation.
4. Establish timing or phasing for achieving the goal.
5. Set cost estimates and identify funding sources for the goal.
6. Prepare maintenance and operational impact statements for new land or
facilities.
7. Define methods for evaluating success and set a schedule for conducting the
evaluation.

17. Design guidelines for park systems
 Some jurisdictions are producing design guidelines for parks.
 The guidelines help create an aesthetic and natural resource management standard
for park development while visually connecting the park with its surroundings.
 They may address:
• Park siting
• Pedestrian, vehicular, and transit access;
• Utilities
• Site furnishings such as fencing, seating, and playground equipment
• Landscaping
• Building materials
• Signage
• Environmental sustainability.

18. Critical and sensitive areas plans

19. Critical and sensitive areas plans
• Critical and sensitive areas are generally defined as lands or water bodies that
provide protection to or habitat for natural resources, living and nonliving, or
are themselves natural resources that require identification and protection from
inappropriate or excessive development.
• In some communities, critical and sensitive areas may also include historic
structures or archaeological features. These latter elements are often protected
by state and federal regulations.

20. Reasons to prepare a critical and sensitive
areas plan
• When acting to protect critical and sensitive areas, planners often have to make
choices as to which resources should be protected and to what degree.
• These choices often include deeming some natural resources more or less
“critical” and “sensitive” than others.
• The process of preparing a critical and sensitive areas plan or an element for a
comprehensive plan provides a framework for identifying the resources,
determining what will be protected, and identifying mechanisms for protecting
them.

21. PLAN COMPONENTS
 The components of critical and sensitive areas plans typically include the
following:
• Descriptions of the identified critical and sensitive resource areas
• GIS maps of critical and sensitive resource areas, based on field surveys
• An analysis of the carrying capacity of the resources identified or, if not known,
mechanisms for determining the carrying capacity of each resource
• A description of the public involvement used to determine which resources are
critical and sensitive and the level of degradation deemed acceptable for each
• Policies to protect the resources
• Implementation strategies

22. Approaches to the plan
Whether you are preparing an element of a comprehensive plan or a separate plan, the
same overall process applies, namely:
1. Identify the resources;
2. Evaluate their value;
3. Determine their carrying capacity;
4. Map the location of resources;
5. Create policy to protect the resources; and
6. Identify regulatory and non regulatory tools to implement the plan and help ensure
protection.