{"id":31943,"date":"2022-09-22T18:18:43","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T22:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=31943"},"modified":"2022-09-22T18:18:45","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T22:18:45","slug":"parks-recreation-master-plan-will-guide-facility-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/parks-recreation-master-plan-will-guide-facility-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Parks & Recreation Master Plan will guide facility development"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As local sports groups get a feel of the two new ball diamonds on the Hallmark Lands near Industrial Parkway South, the Town is revising its blueprint for future sports development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new diamonds were identified as a need within the Town\u2019s current Parks & Recreation Master Plan, but new features in the sports and recreation field could be dictated by a revised plan currently in development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a changing community and, therefore, there are changing needs,\u201d says Al Downey, Aurora\u2019s Director of Operations. \u201c[Changing needs are] the reason you do a review every five years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the weeks and months ahead, the Town aims to hold \u201cstakeholder interviews\u201d and public information sessions to get a snapshot of current needs and future wants ahead of the draft plan being presented to the incoming Council in the first quarter of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat will help us \u2013 as well as Council \u2013 identify service levels where we may have some gaps, where we met some of our targets, but I think that is going to set the framework for any future [facilities] and what those future facilities might look like. Part of the work that the consultant was doing is we always look at best tips for particular parks. We only have a finite amount of land, so some of the discussions around this is repurposing and that is always part of the discussion\u2026and will be reviewed as well. There are some facilities that we may be looking at modifying or repurposing in order to maximize recreational use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are very open to discussions with regards to maybe some of the things that we don\u2019t have or we would like some attention to, whether those are sports fields or whether those are facilities. We\u2019re looking at gym expansion. There\u2019s always a request at some point for a curling rink or a cricket pitch and some of those things we don\u2019t presently provide. Whether we have those opportunities or not, some of the existing groups, whether they be football, rugby, soccer, or baseball, whoever, often come in and say, \u2018This is a great what we have right now, but we might need some additional things.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are also trying to tie that into sports tourism. There is definitely a push to try and provide some sports tourism activity within the Town, so when we look at facilities we look at it through a lens of what other opportunities could these facilities provide [to users] outside of Aurora?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As local sports groups get a feel of the two new ball diamonds on the Hallmark Lands near Industrial Parkway South, the Town is revising its blueprint for future sports development. The new diamonds were identified as a need within the Town\u2019s current Parks & Recreation Master Plan, but new features in the sports and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8jd","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 16:46:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}