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Council adopts 2025–2030 comprehensive outdoor recreation plan to guide parks investments
Summary
After a year‑long planning process and community engagement, council adopted the City of Eau Claire 2025–2030 comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, which ranks parks with a usability index and preserves access to DNR grant eligibility; staff and a consultant reviewed survey results and recommendations and council voted to adopt the plan unanimously.
The council voted unanimously to adopt the City of Eau Claire’s 2025–2030 comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, a five‑year guiding document that ranks parks by a usability index, aggregates community engagement results and provides prioritized recommendations with rough budget estimates for park improvements.
Planning staff and consultant Chris Solecki outlined the plan’s development, noting three outreach events and an online survey with 494 respondents — 90% of whom live in Eau Claire — that prioritized walking trails, community events and playground upgrades. Solecki said the plan is necessary to maintain eligibility for future Wisconsin DNR grant funding for recommended projects and emphasized that adoption creates a guide for future capital improvement programming rather than automatic budget commitments. Councilmembers stressed that adoption of the plan does not bind the council to implement every recommendation and that clerical corrections or targeted amendments could be incorporated; staff confirmed clerical edits would be made as needed before final publication.
Council then moved and adopted the plan by roll call. Staff said they would incorporate a recent amendment addressing pickleball‑court repairs and continue to use the plan to inform CIP requests and grant applications.
