Cooper City presents draft parks and recreation master plan with multi‑year priorities and cost estimates

Consultants and Cooper City staff presented a draft parks and recreation master plan at a workshop, outlining short‑, mid‑ and long‑term priorities for playgrounds, fields, trails, accessibility and amenities and providing preliminary cost estimates and a timeline for additional public outreach.

Louis Fuentes, a consultant with Miller Lehi (the consulting team working on the plan), and Jack Curtis, a parks consultant, presented the plan’s findings, saying the analysis combined a facilities inventory, a statistically valid resident survey, a public workshop and stakeholder interviews. Curtis said, “In total, there was 963 surveys that were completed. That represents about 2.5% of your population,” and summarized the most‑used amenities as walking paths, playgrounds and exercise trails and the top requested improvements as additional shade, better communication about programs, and upgrades to maintenance and comfort amenities.

The plan maps Cooper City’s existing parks and private community amenities and records the city’s current levels of service. The consultants counted 22 playgrounds, 10 multipurpose fields and about 13 baseball/softball fields; they included Brian Piccolo Park and Cooper Colony Golf Course in the city’s parkland calculations and said the city holds roughly 15 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents when those two are included and about 8.36 acres per 1,000 without them. Using projected population growth, the report estimates parkland per 1,000 will fall but remain above the city’s stated target in the Cooper City Comprehensive Development Master Plan (CDMP).

The consultants grouped recommendations under four goals: enhance (maintain and renovate existing facilities), connect (trails and park connectivity), expand (new indoor…