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Cottonwood Heights parks committee asks council to include $20,000 in next budget for projects and outreach
Summary
Parks, Trails & Open Space committee chair Chris Owens requested $20,000 in next-year funding for operations, trail design, regrading, plantings and traffic-calming pilot projects, and outlined a new PTAS branding effort to boost visibility and public participation.
Chris Owens, chair of the Cottonwood Heights Parks, Trails and Open Space (PTAS) committee, told the City Council in a Nov. 18 work session that the volunteer committee is nearly fully staffed and is seeking roughly $20,000 in allocations for small park projects and outreach next year.
Owens said PTAS is proposing a three-part strategy called “PTAS 2” that emphasizes increased public visibility, more collaboration with other city committees and celebrations of completed projects. “We have 14 out of 15 members,” Owens said, and “we’re basing this on three different criteria or three different elements.” He urged coordination with city staff on branding and said PTAS will hold its own presence at events such as Butlerville Days.
The committee detailed seven specific funding requests totaling $20,000: a $3,000 operations allotment (to pay for VIP program shirts, yard and park signage and small event costs); $3,000 for replanting a prominent Mill Hollow planter with drought-tolerant perennials and drip irrigation; $3,000 for an Arbor Day tree allocation (20 trees) and planting events; $3,000 toward active-transportation traffic-calming pilot elements; $1,000 for a small regrading at Ferguson Park to address erosion onto a sidewalk; $5,000 to design and potentially begin a formal trail to replace an eroding social trail on a 26‑acre Utah Open Lands parcel near Little Cottonwood Canyon; and $3,000 for 10 triple-bag dog-waste dispenser posts for park entrances.
On the trail request, Owens said the $5,000 would “more than pay for what we've listed here, the sidewalk proposal and a loop trail design,” and added that some of the money might be used for early construction depending on needs. He also said the committee plans community engagement events (for example, tree-planting with VIP volunteers) to increase public stewardship.
Council members responded positively and asked staff to review PTAS’s list and identify which items are already in departmental plans or budgets. Council member feedback included suggestions to coordinate branding colors with the city and to check whether university extension resources (e.g., Utah State University landscaping expertise) could help evaluate irrigation systems.
Next steps: Council asked city staff to meet with PTAS and return with recommendations on which items could be accommodated in existing budgets and which should move forward as formal budget requests for 2027.
