Park space at a premium

Growth in Salt Lake County's southern end has planners eager to grab more park space before prices and residential growth put those parcels out of reach.

The county's Parks and Recreation Master Plan urges county leaders to quickly secure park sites in Draper and Bluffdale, two cities that have seen new residents in droves.

"Our concern is primarily because of the scarcity of land out there. It's going so rapidly that available parcels are not only difficult to find, but the price of land is just exorbitant," said Glenn Cox, analyst for the county's Division of Parks and Recreation.

Finding and buying 20 to 40 acres of usable open space for a Draper community park is the top priority for county parks and recreation officials, the report said. The County Council will consider the plan, which is the first update in 20 years, at its meeting Tuesday.

The master plan's recommendation, released in July 2005, was news to Draper Mayor Darrell Smith, who said that he thinks residents' demands should drive park construction.

"I think we have a fairly wide variety of accessible, usable parks to meet the demand, but there again, we're not through planning either," Smith said. "It's a lot like other things in life — what's the demand? What's the need for your community?"

The plan said that the county's southeast area, which includes Draper, has less than 50 percent of the park acreage it should have according to division formulas. A gaping disparity in community parks serving Draper is where the county needs to respond first, the master plan said.

Smith said that the most common complaint he hears about Draper parks is that there are not enough soccer and football practice fields for youth leagues. But most of the complaints focus on the fastest-growing areas of Draper, which sit on the city's southern border, not in central Draper, as the county suggests.

Getting a full 120 acres in central Draper may be a long shot with land valued at roughly $30,000 an acre, Cox said. Money for that land would likely come from the county's open space acquisition fund or would have to be allotted by the county council from the general fund.

Draper has paid for parks in the past by bonding, Smith said. It has about $1 million a year for land acquisition, said Michael Sears, the city's finance director.

The county may partner with city leaders to fund land purchases that cities could not finance themselves, Cox said.