| The county's population will double in the next two decades, meaning county leaders will have to plan now for park projects.
Fort Bend County Commissioners Court learned about the population's expansion's effects on park facilities and approved the updated Parks Master Plan at its regular meeting Tuesday.
Lloyd Lentz, director of landscape architecture at Knudson & Associates in Houston, gave an overview of the master plan.
“Our effort first began - first result of efforts - began in 1993, with Vision 2000,” he said. “There were two subsequent master planning efforts before we began this effort in 2007. Our intent is to have a plan that will help guide the county in what it does insofar as land acquisition, park development, grant applications (and) joint activities with our other communities ... from now until 2012.”
Goals from 1993 remain current, Lentz said, and they center on preserving the Brazos River corridor for recreation and flood control purposes, promoting development of regional parks, improving and increasing the number of recreational sites and parks, updating the needs assessment, partnering with other entities for park land acquisition and development, and increasing the number of successful recreational grant applications.
The purpose of the update was to assess the needs of a growing population, provide an updated master plan for recreation grant applications, provide guidance for annual budgeting, provide guidance for acquisition of park land and open space and provide guidance for recreation partnerships.
The county's population is expected to increase by more than 500,000 people between 2007 and 2025, which is a 180 percent increase in population compared to the population of the 2003 parks master plan.
“It looks like we're going to go over a million in population, certainly by 2025, or sooner,” Lentz said.
County Judge Bob Hebert said county commissioners will look at the plan and accelerate programs to accommodate the growth, as the county is growing faster than expected from the plan done five years ago.
“It changes our needs going into the future,” he said.
Recommendations from the updated master plan call for park and open space improvements to Northwest Fort Bend County Regional Park, Southeast Fort Bend County Regional Park, Brazos River Greenbelt Trail, Kitty Hollow Park in Missouri City, Seabourne Creek Park in Rosenberg, fairground beautification and bicycle routes.
The northwest and southeast parks are proposed parks, with the park in the northwest part of the county near Simonton and the park in the southeast part of the county south of Brazos Bend State Park.
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