Timnath drafts Parks & Recreation Master Plan; trails and a recreation center top resident priorities

Consultants and town staff presented a draft Parks and Recreation (PROST) Master Plan to Timnath Town Council March 25, summarizing nearly a year of public engagement and analysis and outlining five strategic initiatives to guide parks, trails and recreation investments over the coming decade.

The draft plan is the product of broad outreach — a mailed statistically valid household survey, pop-up events at the farmers market and community park, comment cards, an online ideas map and focus groups with schools, sports clubs and program stakeholders. The consulting team said more than 500 households responded to the survey (meeting and surpassing the target for statistical validity), and headline survey findings include that 94% of respondents support pursuing a community recreation center and 90% have visited a town park in the past year.

The consultants identified trail connectivity, aquatics/pools and multi-use trails as the top facility priorities, and exercise classes, outdoor water-based activities and outdoor-adventure programming among the most requested programs. Using national benchmarking (NRPA standards) and local inventory, the plan notes that Timnath meets or exceeds national medians for many park amenities but is below the median for some field sports amenities, specifically diamond (baseball/softball) and rectangular (soccer) fields.

The draft plan sets five strategic initiatives: (1) build on the department’s foundation for sustainable operations; (2) grow services to meet community needs (notably aquatics and a recreation center); (3) align infrastructure with a growing, densifying community; (4) expand partnerships with schools, metro districts and nonprofits; and (5) steward natural resources and open space. The presentation included a draft trail-connectivity map with proposed regional and community trail links and a preliminary capital actions list.

Council members asked for clarifications on benchmarking and capital-spend displays; staff and consultants said they will revise charts to show multi-year averages and to better contextualize the large recent capital investments (for example, Wild Wing and reservoir-trail work) against ongoing operating budgets. Several council members and staff emphasized that the plan should be treated as a living document: the consultants recommended a major update on a roughly 8–10-year cycle with periodic midcourse community check-ins and surveys to keep priorities aligned with growth and changing usage patterns.

Consultants said they will incorporate council feedback and deliver a polished final draft for adoption in May following additional steering-committee review and stakeholder input.