Council Provided Information - 3/31/2022CITY COUNCIL OF SALT LAKE CITY
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COUNCIL STAFF REPORT
CITY COUNCIL of SALT LAKE CITY
TO:City Council Members
FROM: Allison Rowland
Budget & Policy Analyst
DATE:April 5, 2022
RE: ORDINANCE: PUBLIC LANDS TWENTY-YEAR MASTER PLAN, REIMAGINE NATURE
ISSUE AT-A-GLANCE
The Council will consider adopting Reimagine Nature, which the Administration has prepared as the City’s
twenty-year Public Lands Master Plan. This document was conceived as a City-wide, long-range vision for
transforming public lands into “a vibrant system of connected public landscapes and living infrastructure that
enhances the community’s identity, sense of place and quality of life.” In another sense, Reimagine Nature
serves as a workplan for the relatively new Public Lands Department itself, as it pursues the goal of creating a
sustainable system of parks, natural lands, and urban forests, including special places like the Salt Lake City
Cemetery and the Regional Athletic Complex. Currently, the system includes 88 parks, 86,500 urban forest
trees, six golf courses and thousands of acres of natural landscapes.
Reimagine Nature is drawn from a community-driven planning process that included over 12,000 people who
provided their views through an online survey, focus groups, micro-engagement events, and community
partnerships designed to reach typically underrepresented groups. These provided the strategic direction and
priorities for ten “transformative projects,” as well as the Plan’s long-term goals. From these, Department
leadership and the project consultants, Design Workshop, developed detailed recommendations for policies,
strategies, and specific actions. The Department notes that the scope, scale and form of implementation will be
determined through development of individual projects and initiatives. For this reason, the Master Plan does
not lay out specific budgetary impacts.
Reimagine Nature is designed as a flexible framework that can adapt to changing circumstances over its 20-year
lifespan. It will require significant additional effort, resources, and funding to achieve. This work will begin with
more detailed Public Lands Department Five-Year Strategic Plans, which will outline and prioritize specific
Item Schedule:
Briefing: April 5, 2022
Set Date: April 5, 2022
Public Hearing: April 19, 2022
Potential Action: May 3, 2022
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implementation strategies and actions and be updated annually by staff. Annual assessments of progress toward
Master Plan goals and projects will also be included. More comprehensive updates to the Master Plan will be
prepared in 2030 and 2040.
Salt Lake City’s Parks, Trails, Natural Lands and Urban Forestry Advisory Board (PNUT) provided a “ringing
endorsement” of Reimagine Nature, and further stated, “We urge the City Council to embrace the foundational
values and five principal goals of the Master Plan. This is a crucial step for the City Council as it helps both
embed the Master Plan and ensure advocacy by current and future elected leaders to seek and support
sustainable funding throughout the plan lifecycle.” (See Attachment C1 for PNUT Endorsement Letter.)
The Public Lands Department began the process of developing and drafting a master plan in 2020, while it was
still a Division of the Public Services Department. Previous Council briefings on the Public Lands Master Plan
process were held in March and October 2020. The City’s most recent previous comprehensive plan of this type
was the Salt Lake City Open Space Plan of 1992.
Goal of the briefing: Review Reimagine Nature, SLC Public Lands 20-Year Master Plan, and potentially
straw poll Council Members on whether to move it toward potential adoption.
ADDITIONAL AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION
A.Background. Previous Council briefings on the Public Lands Master Plan process included:
1.October 2020: Mid-process update on the community engagement strategy that the Public Lands
Division (at the time) and Design Workshop had developed to inform the master plan. The update
was meant to comply with the Council’s Resolution 14 of 2020, Declaring City Council Policy and
Objectives for Preparing Master Plans.
2.March 2020: Review of the Public Lands Needs Assessment, which helped set the baseline for the
master plan.
B.The Need. The Master Plan outlines several types of challenges to the Public Lands Department’s ongoing
ability to protect and care for Salt Lake City’s natural and green areas. Difficulties range from rapid
degradation of local ecological systems due to climate change, to unhealthy environmental factors like poor
air quality, which is fueled by expanding population. In addition, the Plan mentions competing priorities for
limited City funding, aging infrastructure in public lands (63% of assets were evaluated to be in poor or fair
condition), and rapid Downtown development. The Plan also notes that underlying these challenges are the
legacies of racism and classism, which remain visible in the City’s historic zoning and planning decisions, as
well as in other inequities. For these reasons, people across the City need better access to recreation
opportunities to avoid perpetuating disparities, and additional resources are needed to provide public
spaces and programs that serve low and middle-income households.
Other challenges were identified within the Public Lands Department by ETM Associates, which analyzed
levels of staffing, resources, and responsibilities. The Plan states that “Compared to other North American
benchmark cities, Public Lands is relatively understaffed, particularly in the area of long-term management
of environmental assets. For example, Urban Forestry staff is stretched at one staff member protecting an
average of 10,000 trees.” (Staff has requested a copy of this study.)
C.Structure of Reimagine Nature.
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1.Foundational Values. The Master Plan lays out three “foundational values” on which it bases its
recommendations:
a.Stewardship to protect wildlife, trees, mountains, lakes, rivers and scenic views.
b.Livability in the face of the impacts of climate change and population growth; and
c.Equity in community input and access to close-to-home, high-quality green spaces.
2.Department Goals. The Master Plan defines five main Department Goals for the next 20 years.
Each of these is discussed in detail in Chapters 3 to 7.
a.Sustain: Environmental Health and Sustainability;
b.Connect: Accessible and Connected Green Spaces;
c.Welcome: Active, Authentic and Inclusive Places;
d.Protect: A Commitment to Stewardship; and
e.Grow: Expanding our Public Lands System
3.Strategies, Policies, Actions and Metrics. For each Department Goal there is an
accompanying list of Strategies and Supporting Policies, along with 146 near-term possible Actions
to support implementation of various aspects of the Plan. The complete list begins on the Plan’s
page. Progress Metrics are listed on pages 36-40 (see Policy Question 2, below).
4.Transformative Projects. Ten proposed transformative projects, which were identified by
community members as particularly inspirational, are laid out in the Plan. They are designed to
make the Department Goals more tangible, as the means through which the Plan’s vision will be
implemented. They are discussed in the Chapters 3 to 7 along with the Goals most closely related.
a. Put Environment First
b. Grow Our Urban Forest
c. Connect Mountains to the Lake
d. Just 5 Minutes from Here
e. Reimagine Neighborhoods Parks
f. Coming Soon to a Park Near You
g. Revive Our River
h. Sustaining Our Stories
i. Downtown Comes Alive
j. Welcome to the Green
D.Community Engagement. Extensive community engagement was undertaken at nearly every step of the
Master Plan’s creation process, taking place from mid-2020 to mid-2021 (see below). Initial public surveys
led to preliminary ideas that were further tested and refined in a series of focus groups with representative
community stakeholders. Over 12,000 Salt Lake City community members provided input through online
focus groups, University of Utah student-led “intercept interviews” and “micro-engagement events,” and
through an online survey. A detailed description of the engagement process, including a summary of who
provided feedback, and what they told the city, can be found in the Engagement Summaries at
www.ReimagineNatureSLC.com.
Engagement Window 1: Building a Foundation of Understanding. August-December, 2020.
Engagement Window 2: Visioning Transformational Projects and Priority Actions. March-May, 2021.
E.Issues of Special Interest to Council Members.
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1.Equity in Parks and Park Access. Chapter 5 of the Master Plan focuses on the Goal of
Welcome: Active, Authentic, and Inclusive Spaces. It discusses the increased awareness among
cities nationwide of the health and social benefits of living near park spaces, as well as efforts to
close gaps in park access. In Salt Lake City specifically, the 2019 Public Lands Needs Assessment
shed light on differences like the lack of City-wide festivals held on in Westside parks, the tendency
of Westside residents to visit east-side parks (but not vice versa), and significantly lower visitation
rates at Westside parks. It also notes that “Equal investment in parks throughout Salt Lake City’s
neighborhoods does not always translate to parks that equally serve each community, nor does it
make up for any historic inequities.”
To help address these problems, the Public Lands Department is committed to working with
neighborhoods to ensure that parks and natural spaces better reflect diverse cultures and histories.
This will mean a careful examination of how Department resources are allocated across the City and
targeting investments to historically underserved neighborhoods. The Department also understands
that extra efforts will need to be taken to ensure that underrepresented and underserved
populations are involved in the park planning process which, in turn will ensure that their local
knowledge will contribute to each park’s unique character, uses, and enjoyment.
The Plan also makes clear that the Department is aware that “Strategies that are beneficial to some
communities, such as ‘Friends of the Parks’ groups, can put communities who do not have the time
or money to spend at a disadvantage.” It also cites the Urban Institute’s report Investing in
Equitable Urban Park Systems which states, “All funding models have equity implications: some
are explicitly designed to address equity and meaningfully engage all residents, some risk deepening
inequities and fueling displacement, and most depend on how they are used.”
Specific strategies mentioned in the Plan include partnering with local organizations for art,
education and recreation programs, community-driven approaches to public lands improvements,
and physical improvements that represent the style, history, and recreation preferences of each
neighborhood.
2.Homelessness and Unsheltered People in Parks. During public engagement for the Master
Plan, the most common topic raised was concern for and about people who are experiencing
homelessness and use public lands as places to shelter. Opinions ranged across a full spectrum on
the kinds of approaches the City should take to addressing the issue, but it is clear that this is a
larger social issue that the Department of Public Lands cannot resolve on its own. Although the
impacts on public spaces operated and maintained by the Public Lands Department are significant,
the Plan recommends a compassionate approach to people experiencing homelessness, including
facilitation of access to information about available services and resources, hotlines, community
partners, and opportunities to engage in cross-community dialogue to help make City parks
welcoming and safe for sheltered and unsheltered alike. This would include quarterly training to
Public Lands staff and park maintenance workers regarding homelessness resources, understanding
of homelessness and appropriate engagement with people experiencing homelessness. (See Policy
Question 4, below.)
3.Preparing for Continuing Population Growth. Reimagine Nature acknowledges that
meeting the needs of Salt Lake City’s quickly growing population will be challenging, especially
because the potential for acquiring additional City green space is limited. It recommends upgrading
amenities and enhancing environmental quality as strategies that will allow existing parks to serve
more people. This is particularly the case on the Westside, which has higher per capita levels of park
and natural land acreage than elsewhere, as well as the asset of the Jordan River.
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The Public Lands Master Plan also notes (page 70) that providing “public green space” on the Fleet
Block would fill a gap in the City’s park system. The 2019 Public Lands Needs Assessment identified
the Central Community as having the lowest level of park service, and yet it is expected to
experience the most future growth. Staff note: the Council will be briefed on the Administration’s
plans for the Fleet Block on April 19.
4.A Pending Correction. In Chapter Seven, Welcome to the Green, the Public Lands Department
plans to correct a statement about Golf Division finances that erroneously asserts that the Golf
receives no funding from the City’s general fund (page 171). In fact, in FY20, FY21 and FY22, the
general fund provided over $5 million to the Golf Fund, according to the Council’s FY22 Budget
Staff Report for the Golf Enterprise Fund, dated May 25, 2021. The Department has indicated that
it will correct this oversight in the final version of the Master Plan to read as follows:
“As an Enterprise Fund, Golf does receive some supplemental funding from the general fund. The
majority of their budget is required to cover its annual operating costs and capital repairs with
revenue from golf activities.”
F.Next Steps.
1.Short-Term Steps. Once Reimagine Nature is adopted, the Department of Public Lands will
organize its year-by-year actions and project priorities around the Master Plan’s recommendations.
The Department plans to request support in the FY23 CIP process for the development of a five-year
strategic plan that will identify the specific projects, initiatives, activities, and organizational focus
areas needed to facilitate and accelerate plan implementation.
2.Future Plans. Reimagine Nature identified the following additional City plans whose
development the Department plans to lead in coming years.
Public Lands 5-Year Strategic
Plan
Capital Facilities Plan Climate Resilience Plan
Public Lands Strategic
Acquisition Plan
Financial Plan Drought Management Plan
Asset Management Plan Fiscal Management Procedures Water Budget Plan
Cartegraph Impact Fee Spending Plan Operations Management
Standards/Plan
Capital Replacement Projects Urban Forestry Master Plan Development Standards
Irrigation Renovation Plan Golf Master Plan Public Outreach and
Communications Plan
3. Additional City plans for which the Public Lands Department plans to collaborate with other
departments are:
Area Master Plans/Neighborhood Plans
Long-range Planning Efforts
Homelessness Response Plan
POLICY QUESTIONS
1. The Goals and Transformative Projects presented in Reimagine Nature vary substantially in terms of scope,
cost, logical sequencing, and other characteristics. In addition, work on some of these items is already
underway. The degree to which any of these Goals and Projects further the values of Equity, Stewardship
and Livability also varies. Given this complexity, the Council may wish to ask the
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Administration to discuss their thoughts on how they will balance among competing
priorities in terms of allocating funds and staff time, as well as unexpected funding
opportunities, scheduled work by other departments, etc.
2.The Council may wish to ask for more information on the Progress Metrics listed for each of
the Plan’s Goals (pages 36-40). For example, will the Council receive information on the process of
meeting these Goals in the annual Mayor’s Recommended Budget, and/or in the Five-Year Strategic Plans?
Will allocating work among the Department Values be used to help prioritize funding requests?
3. Budget estimates were not included in Reimagine Nature, since its focus is more conceptual, and the
estimates would become outdated even more quickly than usual in recent years. The Council may wish
to request that at least some indication of relative costs of different projects be included in
each of the upcoming five-year plans. For example, a simple notation like $, $$, $$$, $$$$ could be
developed to provide some indication of relative costs and help with the prioritization of individual projects.
This may be particularly helpful if the Administration is considering a GO Bond relating to parks and public
lands in the near future. The Council may also wish to discuss with the Administration how potentially
transformative projects will be maintained in the future, given ongoing funding pressures.
4.The Council may wish to discuss with the Administration how the newly-formed park
ranger program could help with this issue, and if metrics will be tracked to assess how the
program impacts this concern from the public.
5. Several items mentioned in the Master Plan would have implications beyond the Public Lands Department.
The Council may wish to consider asking for more information on how the Department is working with its
counterparts on these. For example:
a. As part of the Green Loop discussion, on Figure 31 (page 90 of the transmittal’s PDF file) there
is a label titled “Rio Grande Festival Street.” The Council may wish to ask whether and
how this concept would be affected by the RDA's Station Center Project Area
planning efforts.
b. The Fleet Block is mentioned in several places in the Plan as an advantageous location for a
future green space. Would the Council like to request that the Administration
include specific discussion of this possibility in the Council’s Fleet Block update,
which is scheduled for April 12?
6. The Master Plan contains several ideas for expanding the use of City golf courses to a wider public and
increasing their role in providing local environmental services like native species habitat and storm water
drainage. The ideas for increasing Golf Enterprise Fund revenue are less concrete and tend to involve large
financial investments, including some that could put some public funds at risk. These ideas will be further
developed in a future Golf Master Plan, but given the longstanding record of revenue shortfalls and the
resulting lack of capital investment resources in the Golf Fund, would the Council like to request
additional information in the shorter term about how the Administration plans to improve
the financial sustainability of the Golf Fund?
ATTACHMENT
Attachment C1. Endorsement Letter from the Salt Lake City Parks, Trails, Natural Lands and Urban Forestry
Advisory Board (PNUT).
March 8, 2022
451 S State Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Mayor Erin Mendenhall and City Council Members,
Please allow this letter to serve as a ringing endorsement for the Salt Lake City Public Lands Master Plan,
aptly named “Reimagine Nature”. Thirty years after adoption of the 1992 Salt Lake City Open Space
plan, development of a new Master Plan is long overdue and sorely needed in a time of unprecedented
population growth that severely impacts the environmental health and quality of our invaluable public
lands. As city residents and appointed members of the Parks, Trails, Natural Lands and Urban Forestry
Advisory Board (PNUT), we are highly sensitive to the stress on our public lands and the funding
necessary to protect, enhance and preserve this land for future generations.
We applaud the foundational values of the plan as they highlight the culture of stewardship necessary
to protect public lands, while also emphasizing that public lands improve livability as we face the
challenges of climate change. Most importantly, these values state that all residents of SLC need
equitable access to high quality public lands to improve their own personal health and well-being.
Additionally, as an advisory board we wish to communicate the following:
Our advisory board had ample opportunity to review and comment on the draft Master
Plan. We thank the lead staff and consultant group for using evidence-based analysis, coupled
with public engagement, to form a guiding vision and identify transformative projects.
The extensive community process was multifaceted and successful despite the challenges of
the COVID-19 pandemic. We appreciate that this outreach was intentionally planned to reach
community members traditionally unheard and/or unreached in city planning processes, and
that these voices are reflected in the values, principal goals and transformative projects of the
Master Plan.
We wish to thank the students and faculty of the University of Utah for their assistance during
the community engagement process.
Adoption of the Master Plan will pave the way for capital improvements currently funded and
those requested in future budget years. We urge the City Council to approve the FY23 CIP
request for development of a five (5) year strategic plan to identify and accelerate near-term
implementation of the Master Plan.
We urge the City Council to embrace the foundational values and five principal goals of the
Master Plan. This is a crucial step for the City Council as it helps both embed the Master Plan
and ensure advocacy by current and future elected leaders to seek and support sustainable
funding throughout the plan lifecycle.
We recommend each City Department leadership team become familiar with the foundational
values and five principal goals of the Master Plan and coordinate their projects and funding
initiatives to dovetail therein - thereby maximizing limited taxpayer dollars.
We are excited about the prospect of seeing this Master Plan fully implemented in the next 10-20
years. This is a huge step for the Public Lands Department and for the city as a whole. We applaud the
hard work of staff, consultants, elected officials and our fellow community members in the development
of this Master Plan. We are proud to lend our support and advocacy for this work, and honored to serve
as members of the PNUT advisory board during this important moment in public lands history.
This is a plan that will not sit on a shelf. For our community to have a healthy, livable and equitable
future, now is the time.
Yours sincerely,
Polly Hart, Chair PNUT Board
Brianna Binnebose, Vice Chair
Ginger Cannon
Samantha Finch
Jenny Hewson
Phil Carroll
CJ Whittaker
Melanie Pehrson
Clayton Scrivner