City of Parkland to apply for state park grants for equestrian center and Pine Trails

Sherry Toups, the city’s budget and grants manager, told the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board that the City of Parkland will submit two applications to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program (FRDAP), with applications due Sept. 30.

Toups said the city will apply under the $50,000, no‑match tier for improvements at the Equestrian Center and will also pursue the larger, up to $200,000 grant (which requires a 50/50 local match) for a set of improvements at Pine Trails Park, including basketball‑court work and other field and support‑element upgrades. “Every year at the state level, they offer this grant called FRDAP for short,” Toups said. “There’s, up to 50,000 for a development or a new park, and that does not require a match. And then there’s up to 200,000, which requires a fifty‑fifty match.”

The Equestrian Center application will highlight planned replacement and repair work — Toups cited the picnic pavilion (which she said would earn extra points in the state scoring matrix), fence repairs and improvements to riding rings. For Pine Trails, staff described a broader project bundle that could include basketball‑court renovations, baseball and multiuse field work, landscaping tweaks and restroom improvements. Toups said staff maintains a 20‑year replacement plan and that the projects are already on the city’s improvement radar.

City staff cautioned that the state’s scoring and budget process control final awards. Toups noted the timeline: applications are submitted by the Sept. 30 deadline, the state conducts its legislative and budget process, and awards (if any) are typically known after the state budget cycle — she said staff wouldn’t know the outcome until July 1 of the funding year. She added that the city’s lobbyist advises applying annually to remain competitive.

Board members asked whether the projects are already budgeted; staff responded that many of the improvements are planned but not budgeted, because some items remain on the city’s longer‑term replacement list and applying for grant funds would supplement — not replace — those planned expenditures. Toups emphasized that applying for FRDAP is a supplemental funding step and not a guarantee of state funding.

The advisory board did not take a formal vote on the grant submissions during the meeting; staff requested that the discussion be reflected in the minutes and proceeded to prepare the applications.

Looking ahead, staff said they will include the project details needed for competitive scoring on the FRDAP application and will return with updates as the state process progresses.