Consultants outline parks master plan recommendations; residents press for dog-park fixes, lighting and Zephyr Park funding

Consultants from GAI presented a draft update to Zephyrhills City’s parks and recreation master plan on the CRA workshop agenda, laying out a three-phase plan, proposed park standards and a new “functional” level-of-service aimed at measuring park quality as well as acreage.

The presentation and subsequent public comments matter because the plan is intended to guide near‑term capital spending, the city’s 2025–26 budget decisions and how the City prioritizes repairs and programming for parks that community members use daily.

Kristen Caborn, the GAI consultant leading the parks work, told the meeting the master-plan process is focused on both current needs and “what Zephyrhills is gonna look like in the future” and emphasized that the planning team will deliver a capital‑improvement list tied to cost estimates for the last phase of the study.

Caborn said the plan retains Zephyrhills’s existing acreage level-of-service — currently 4 acres per 1,000 residents as recorded in the city’s recreation/open‑space element — but adds a separate “functional” level-of-service that gauges whether park acreage provides open, accessible amenities (play areas, walking loops, shade, picnic pavilions) rather than counting any acreage the city owns. She recommended removing the Sarah Vandenberg Tennis and Wellness Center from the city’s park acreage calculation because, she said, the facility “is not contributing a functional public purpose for the general public” and is “restricted.”

The draft proposes a neighborhood‑park…