Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) is working on a 4-year Recreation Plan, and Pittsburghers have a chance to comment on the ideas before it is implemented.
The DCNR with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy will host an event to take public comments on Thursday October 9th at the Schenley Park Skating Rink.
Chris Novak, press secretary at DCNR, says that the community comments are considered very seriously “Hiking was a very popular outdoor activity, so we invested grant dollars in providing trails and local parks in communities so that people could access them easily. Those are the types of suggestions that are made in the plan, and we want people to know if we’re on the right track.”
The event will kick off at 4:30 with a disc golf demonstration. Then the group will outline the DCNR’s plan and then allow community members to learn more and comment on the plan at different stations at the event.
The plan consists of 20 recommendations including “Use new and existing research to document the economic benefits of outdoor recreation and land conservation in the state,” with action items such as “publish a report every three years that aggregates and documents economic impact data case studies.”
DCNR will take feedback on its website from now until October 31st.
“We look at all of those in the mix, and come up with some action items on things that we would like to do to meet what people tell us are important to them, as far as things they like to do outdoors, but also the places that they do those things, how we should invest our grant dollars,” said Novak.
Through this plan and the feedback, the DCNR will be eligible to receive funding from the federal Land and Water Conservation.
Similar meetings will be held in Philadelphia Oct. 7 and in Harrisburg Oct. 8.
