SD18 - Virginia State Parks Planning Standards and Status


Executive Summary:
The General Assembly in Section 10.1-200 of the Code of Virginia (Chapter 789 of the 1998 Acts of the Assembly and formally Senate Bill 290 required the Department to determine the adequacy of the government to meet the park and recreation needs of the citizens of Virginia. It required the development of a standard in terms of acres and an assessment of the how the Commonwealth falls short of, meets or exceeds the standard.

The Virginia Outdoors Plan is the basic guide to federal, state, local, and private sector recreation and open space providers has identified standards for local and state entities. These have been reviewed and amended on a five-year cycle with the publication of the basic report. The plan suggests that these are minimum values and should be exceeded when possible and desirable. The Plan does provide standards for open space lands, which have important natural, cultural, and historical values. The acquisition and management of these resources are deferred to the specific state or local government agency.

This report indicates that the standard for State Park and local recreation lands has been met on a statewide basis. However, there are a number of Planning Regions (PDC) which have deficiencies for state parklands and local parks. There are also localities that have specific needs for land that have not been met. The Plan does not prescribe a numerical value for open space lands, which have unique resource values. Localities have the opportunity to acquire and manage lands of this nature for education and selected recreation activities.

The reported concluded that the demand for recreation activities exceeds the current ability of the existing state and local park and recreation sites to meet the public need. That more lands are need for recreation and to protect important natural, cultural, and historic resources. It was also concluded that a system should be developed for annual reporting of property acquisitions. The development of local comprehensive park and open space plans would assist in the identification of priorities for acquisition and development. A stable funding source for open space and recreation programs should be considered to insure the availability of funds to implement programs to meet the needs for the preservation and management.