Salt Lake City Asks for Community Input to Kick off Development of New Public Lands Master Plan, “Reimagine Nature”

Salt Lake City is developing a new Public Lands Master Plan. This master plan will provide a guiding vision for the next 20 years for the City’s four Public Lands Divisions: City Parks, Trails & Natural Lands, Urban Forestry, and City Golf.

Given the goals of this master plan, it has been given the name, “Reimagine Nature.” Reimagine Nature will use comprehensive, evidence-based analysis, coupled with community engagement, to prioritize and identify transformative projects for Salt Lake City’s public lands to improve equity, stewardship and livability for the community. Building on extensive community input collected in fall 2020, the project team is developing a set of transformative projects that will be shared with the community during this second engagement window.

The second of three community engagement windows for the master plan will take place between April 1 and May 7, 2021.

During the first engagement window, which took place between August and October 2020, Public Lands received over 4,400 survey responses, spoke with over 2,300 people at on-site “pop-up” events, and engaged with over 250 people through community and stakeholder presentations. Over a dozen focus groups were also performed with members of traditionally under-represented populations as well as key project stakeholders.

For this engagement window, Public Lands staff will be on-site at the City’s parks, trails, and other open spaces throughout the engagement window to share information about the planning process and invite visitors to take the survey. At these events, staff will share the transformative projects and gather additional community feedback. Numerous community presentations will also be given throughout the engagement window. A full list of these events, activities and community presentations can be found on this website. Community members can also visit this site to learn about Reimagine Nature and to provide feedback through an online survey.

As part of “Reimagine Nature,” the City has partnered with the University of Utah’s City and Metropolitan Planning Department’s West Side Studio. During the second community engagement window, students will engage with West Side residents in community activities and share information about Reimagine Nature and the public survey.