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 Master Planning
Yolo County Parks Master Plan
Yolo County, California
Yolo County, nestled in the Central Valley against the eastern edge of the Coast Range, is blessed with a wide array of natural resources including over 1,000 square miles of mountain ranges and foothills, valley grasslands and woodlands, agricultural land, ranches, floodways, and riparian corridors. However this primarily rural setting has not been immune to development and population growth pressures that are being experienced by so many once agricultural areas throughout the State. The Yolo County Parks and Open Space Master Plan focused on balancing multiple competing demands, including protecting the integrity and viability of its agricultural lands, preserving sensitive habitats and wildlife, and yet adapting also to urban growth pressures and its demand for increased recreational lands and uses.
The County of Yolo Parks and Natural Resources Management Division retained The Dangermond Group (TDG), with support from Roberts, Kemp & Associates, to lead a park master planning process that would result in a new County Parks and Open Space Master Plan. An existing advisory committee, the Parks, Recreation and Wildlife Advisory Committee became the advisory and stakeholder group for the plan process which included public outreach in the form of public workshops and then subsequent issues-based meeting with select stakeholder groups such as the farm community.
The TDG team began by reviewing County directives and State trends, and assessed County recreation uses and natural resources. An existing conditions and resources assessment report was prepared that was then used to inform the public outreach meetings. The process included existing recreation infrastructure assessments; a comparative analysis of similar rural to urban park mater plan efforts; a workshop-based public input process; GIS mapping and analyses; funding strategy analyses and then the translation of these analyses into a master plan document.
This project illustrates the need for conducting a public input process that captures the audiences with the greatest potential benefits and impacts from the plan outcome. There were several groups that revealed themselves during the planning process; the new urban population keen on experiencing quality recreation venues that are representative of the Yolo landscape, the unincorporated community residents who have specific park needs such as playfields for kids but lack the facilities and services to accommodate those needs and finally the existing rural agricultural community who are threatened by the encroachment that the new residents with their desire for quality recreation experiences presents. By working with each of these constituencies, the Plan was crafted to both meet the needs and concerns of each of the affected groups.
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