Chapter 2 Planning Context
D. Existing Parks Resources
In addition to serving local residents, the City of Coeur d’Alene is a regional provider of park and recreation services and supports a robust tourist industry, as this chapter demonstrates. While there are notable regional resources provided by other agencies, Coeur d’Alene is the major provider of parks and facilities in the area.
Coeur d’Alene’s park system is extensive, diverse and well-maintained. Many park sites are multi-use in nature, combining sport field resources with casual sport amenities, picnic facilities and support facilities such as parking and restrooms. Many parks are located near schools or are situated in residential settings, with designated pathways providing easy, non-vehicular access for youth and families. The City of Coeur d’Alene has done an excellent job of acquiring new park land as the city expands outward, and has developed these sites as funding has allowed.
Coeur d’Alene’s Park, Facility and Property Classification
Park land is classified to assist in planning for a community’s recreation needs. A park system is composed of various park types, each offering different recreation opportunities. Separately, each park type may serve only one function, but collectively the system will serve the entire range of community needs. By classifying park land by its function, a community can evaluate its needs and plan more easily, providing a more efficient, cost effective and usable park system that minimizes conflicts between park users and neighbors. In addition to maintaining public parks and open spaces, the Parks and Recreation Department is also responsible for the maintenance of other areas including cemeteries, beautification areas and the grounds of public buildings.
The City of Coeur d’Alene’s classifications for existing parks, facilities and properties it maintains include:
Community Parks
Community Parks are larger facilities that are designed to serve people from a greater geographic area while providing a wide range of recreational
opportunities. They support extensive amenities and often have unique features that draw specific user groups. These parks require support facilities including onsite parking, full restrooms and maintenance buildings.
Amenities and facilities typically found in community parks include picnic shelters, off leash dog parks, basketball courts, playgrounds, open play fields, splash pads and tennis/pickleball courts. Community parks often provide access to and support use of other recreational resources including sports fields, lakes rivers and natural open spaces.
Neighborhood Parks
Neighborhood parks are smaller facilities designed to serve the needs of the subdivision or neighborhood they are located in. They generally support non-supervised, non-organized recreation activities. Neighborhood parks tend to be small in size, usually less than seven acres. They are accessible to nearby residents primarily by walking or bicycling to the site. Parking is usually limited and is sometimes restricted to on street parking. When restroom facilities are present, they may consist of portable restroom shelters, vault toilets and in some cases full restrooms. Facilities typically found in
Cherry Hill BMX Track
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neighborhood parks include playgrounds, outdoor sports courts, open play areas, benches and picnic tables, pathways and small picnic shelters. Some neighborhood parks include a ballfield as part of the facility.
Natural Parks
Natural Parks are properties primarily left in a natural condition that serves as preserves for wildlife and native plant communities. They also serve to protect community resources such as wetlands, waterfront shore lines, streams and creeks, hillsides, view-sheds, sensitive habitat and endangered plant species. They are typically owned and managed by government agencies. Natural Open Areas may serve as trail corridors and generally support passive nature-oriented leisure activities. Active recreation is a secondary and incidental use.
Trails and Greenways
Greenways are vegetated, linear, multi-purpose parks that that serve as open space connectors, linking parks, natural areas, cultural features and historic sites with each other and the community as a whole. They are often created from abandoned railroad beds, canal tow paths, public right of ways and other utility easements. Greenways usually incorporate bike trails and/or footpaths, providing alternate transportation routes off public roadways while promoting healthy life styles along with community walkability and bicycle commuting. Greenways should not be confused with sidewalk trails that serve strictly to support pedestrian and bicycle transportation and do not share the other attributes of linear parks. Greenways serve to unify an entire parks system and link the community to its parks and natural areas.
Sports Complexes
Sports complexes are active-use parks that are specifically designed to support active, organized recreational use, often with a focus on a specific sport or activity. These facilities can include softball complexes, football fields, little league fields, soccer fields, tennis centers, aquatic centers and gymnasiums. Multisport complexes can include several sports-oriented facilities.
Community Centers
Community centers are buildings designed to support indoor recreational programs. They can be facilities that support use by the entire community or have a focus on a specific user group such as youths or senior citizens.
Although often located in public parks, community centers can be free standing facilities. Often community centers contain gymnasiums, meeting rooms and fitness centers. They may or may not have aquatic facilities and other specialized amenities. Many community centers are operated by non-profit organizations.
Waterfront Facilities
Waterfront facilities are assets owned or open to the public that provide access to publicly owned water bodies including lakes and rivers. These facilities are often, but not always located in public parks. They can be free standing public facilities in nature or they can be privately owned and maintained, but open to public use by ordinance similar to a sidewalk. These facilities include public swimming beaches, docks, boardwalks and boat ramps.
Cemeteries
Cemeteries are areas set aside for the burial of the deceased and the
internment of urns containing their remains of the deceased. They are usually not associated with churchyards which are typically referred to as graveyards.
Cemeteries can be publicly or privately owned. Traditionally, operating cemeteries involves the setting aside of land for burial, the digging and filling of graves and the maintenance of the landscape. Detailed records are kept to ensure burials are performed at the correct location.
Non-Park Areas
Beautification Areas
Beautification areas are parcels of land either owned by the city or maintained by the city by agreement with the landowner for the primary purpose of improving the appearance of the community.
They generally do not support recreational use. These include
landscaped areas along roadways that are part of the city’s streets and right-of-way’s such as median strips, swales, interchanges and round-a-bouts. Other beautification areas can include the grounds of public buildings, utility easements and miscellaneous public spaces.
Maintenance Facilities
Maintenance facilities are buildings and yards that support the maintenance of public parks and other properties. They include shops which can be located inside of parks and free-standing
buildings. They are used as a base of operations and are used to store equipment and materials used in the day to day maintenance of public properties. Employees report to and work out of maintenance facilities.
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