Genevieve Bridal, project manager with SCJ Alliance, told the joint Planning Commission and Parks & Arts Commission on Dec. 10 that the parks master plan team recommends adopting a city-focused level-of-service (LOS) approach to guide capital projects and grant applications.

Bridal said the team reviewed state and national guidance — the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) and the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) — and combined quantitative acreage-per-capita analysis with qualitative community engagement. She reported nearly 500 responses to outreach and said 83% of respondents called parks and recreation "very important" to quality of life in Liberty Lake.

Under the recommendation labeled Alternative B, the city would adopt a 10-acres-per-1,000-residents LOS that counts only city-owned and -maintained parkland (rather than the broader inventory that includes fee-based golf courses and some school acreage). Bridal said Alternative B also calls for separate LOS targets by park classification — for example, community parks, neighborhood parks and pocket parks — and a trails metric (0.5 miles per 1,000 residents). The approach is intended to make the city’s case stronger and more defensible for certain grants by focusing on land the city controls.

Commissioners raised several points that Bridal and the team agreed to address. Commissioners questioned whether large, fee-based acreage such as Trailhead Golf Course should be included (several said it skewed acreage totals), whether planned Town Center Park should be modeled in scenarios, and how HOA-owned pocket parks and shared-use school fields should be treated. Bridal acknowledged an inventory error that included Ridgeline High School acreage in Alternative B and said removing that site (about 21 acres) will change totals.

After extended discussion, staff and the consultants agreed to revise Alternative B to reflect local park types and access realities: redefine or add a pocket-park/neighborhood-park category that better matches Liberty Lake’s HOA and small-park pattern, remove Ridgeline High School acreage from the Alternative B inventory, and recalculate LOS figures. Bridal and her colleague "Eddie" said they will prepare a staff memo summarizing the revised inventory and recommendations for a future agenda and possible action.

The committee also discussed how adopting a narrower, city-owned LOS could affect grant competitiveness. Bridal said that while a higher acreage-per-capita number looks favorable on paper, grant reviewers (notably RCO) favor standards tied to municipal control and documented community need; project-level evidence drawn from engagement results (for example, demand for accessible playground replacement) also strengthens applications.

Next steps: staff will rework Alternative B as directed, share a memo with planners, and place the revised recommendation on a future meeting agenda for an action item. The workshop also provided material that will feed Liberty Lake’s 20-year capital facilities plan and the comprehensive plan update.