8.0. PRSR 02-08-1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Page 2 • these facilities must also be considered. Not shown on the map or listed on the exhibit, are two golf courses, Elk River Country Club, an 18 hole course, and Pinewood Golf Course, an executive course. Neighborhood Parks Elk River is a growing community and therefore has a young population. Neighborhood parks provide open space that is needed with the development of smaller lots in the urban service area. Typical amenities found in a neighborhood park include, an open play area, back-stop, hard-court, playground equipment, and trails. Examples of optional amenities include, a sliding hill, skating, tennis courts, archery, etc. The City's current Master Park Plan calls for neighborhood parks of 5 to 25 acres in size that would serve approximately 3,000 to 5,000 people. The current plan identifies 14 park service areas which are proposed to be served by neighborhood parks. These park service areas include the rural areas of Elk River. The urban service area of Elk River is situated in only 6 of these park service areas, so only 6 neighborhood parks are currently planned to serve the entire urban area of Elk River. • The Park and Recreation Commission has redefined the park service areas that would require neighborhood parks. The redefined park service areas are only situated in the urban service area of Elk River where the smaller lots exist. The Park and Recreation Commission's rationale is that the larger lots in the rural areas have their own open space associated with them to serve needs that would have to be accommodated by neighborhood parks in the urban area of Elk River. The revised park service areas are defined by physical barriers such as Lake Orono or Highway 10, an optimum walking distance of 1/2 mile from all locations of a park service area to a neighborhood park, and a maximum population density that would be served by the neighborhood park. To meet the demand to have more neighborhood parks serving more areas, and to lessen the burden on landowners or developers that dedicate park land versus fees, it was decided that 2 to 4 acre neighborhood parks, serving approximately 1,000 people would be more desirable than the larger neighborhood parks. Map #3 shows 24 proposed park service areas in the urban service district of the City. The symbol NP on that map, identifies the location of the new neighborhood parks that need to be created to serve various park service • areas. Park service areas that have existing facilities that can serve PP-sr/bz