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Buckeye council adopts 10-year Parks and Recreation Master Plan
Summary
After an 18-month public process, the City of Buckeye City Council unanimously approved a Parks and Recreation Master Plan that sets a 10-year vision, identifies 172 action items and a level-of-service goal of eight acres per 1,000 residents, and outlines funding and implementation steps.
The City of Buckeye City Council on June 17 unanimously approved a resolution adopting a new Parks and Recreation Master Plan that will guide parks, trails, open space and recreation programming for the next 10 years.
The plan, presented by Bob Weisner, deputy director of the community services department, summarizes an 18-month planning process that included a statistically valid resident survey (95% confidence interval), 13 public meetings and roughly 4,300 community inputs. ‘‘This Parks and Recreation Master Plan provides the vision and framework for how we grow parks and recreation services over the next 10 years and beyond,’’ Weisner said at the meeting.
Council members and volunteer advisors told the council the plan provides needed direction as Buckeye continues to grow. Sharma Torrance, executive director of the White Tank Mountains Conservancy, said the group ‘‘is fully supportive of this plan’’ and praised its attention to wildlife habitat and corridor preservation. Kathleen Rossetti, vice chair of the Community Services Advisory Board, testified the advisory board voted to recommend council approval.
Key elements in the plan include a stated desired level of service of eight acres of parkland per 1,000 residents (carried over from the city’s 2016 master plan, which had set the same goal and divided responsibility roughly between the city and development), a list of 172 action items (compared with 107 in 2016), and policies for trails and open-space preservation. The plan highlights connectivity projects — including linking Skyline Regional Park trails to the White Tank Mountains Regional Park trail network — a proposed land preservation plan to identify high-value conservation parcels, and partnerships with homeowners associations and school districts for program and site-sharing.
Weisner told council the plan also recommends organizational changes and new services, including an identified park ranger program that city council previously approved positions for in the FY26 operating budget. Chief Sanders clarified the city previously used a police officer in a park-ranger role but the position was not formally classified as a park ranger.
Funding and implementation steps described by staff include incorporating items into the city’s operating budget requests and capital improvement program and studying the feasibility of a future quality-of-life bond to finance new parks and amenities. Weisner said some items may be low-cost and could be handled as staff performance goals; others will require capital funding decisions.
The plan was recommended unanimously by the Community Services Advisory Board and by the Planning and Zoning Commission. At the meeting the council made a motion to approve resolution adopting the Parks and Recreation Master Plan (agenda item 5A) and the motion passed unanimously. The council directed staff to include plan priorities in upcoming budget and CIP discussions and to continue stakeholder coordination as projects move toward implementation.
Next steps identified at the meeting include programming the plan’s priorities into the FY26 operating and capital budgets, continuing coordination with partner organizations such as the White Tank Mountains Conservancy, and returning to council with funding specifics as projects are scoped.
