At a regular meeting of the Wimberley City Council on June 20, the council recognized July 2024 as Parks and Recreation month and approved a new Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Master Plan.
Richard Shaver, Wimberley Parks and Recreation Director, presented a 93-page, ten-year plan that will guide planning through 2034. Some fifteen months in the making, Shaver stated that the plan was a “labor of love.”
Planning began in the Spring of 2023 with the goal of creating new strategies to suit Wimberley’s changing needs. Shaver partnered with the Dallas firm, MHS Planning & Design.
Aided by an advisory committee that included the Parks and Rec Board and a City Council liaison, an inventory of each park was conducted, and the public was asked for their input via focus groups, surveys and pop-up events.
Calling the members of the Parks and Recreation Board “a blue ribbon panel,” Mayor Pro Tem Rebecca Minnick applauded their hard work, to which Shaver agreed, saying “the Parks Board has been phenomenal.”
Members of the board included Lin Weber, Chair, Leah Cuddeback, Amy Crowell, Anthony Deringer, Lee Ann Linam, Noland Martin and Kelley Shand. Valuable input was also received from the Parks, Recreation, Trails and Open Space Master Plan Advisory Committee that included the members of the Park Board, with the exception of Amy Crowell, plus Trey Cooksey and Chris Sheffield.
The Parks and Rec Master Plan is designed to work with the city’s Comprehensive Plan. Considered a working document, best practices are to update the master plan every five years and to create a new plan every ten years.
The priorities that emerged from the advisory panels and public meetings were the further development and connection of trails, land acquisition, site furniture that included shade structures, benches and picnic tables, the preservation and conservation of natural resources, aquatic recreation, increased signage, play equipment, a multi-generational center, multi-purpose fields, and finally, public art.
For the decade ahead, the community also recommended that safety measures and accessibility be enhanced and that an active habitat management and rewilding be developed. One of the key components of the plan involved the acquisition of land.
Recommending that the city be proactive in the acquisition of new parkland, the plan discussed how municipalities like Wimberley acquire it — through parkland dedication, the purchase of new property or through outright donation. It suggested that the city identify property that would work with the Parks System.
The plan suggested that Wimberley acquire a minimum of 10 acres on the west side of RR 12 for a neighborhood park, land to provide access to water for activities like swimming, paddle sports and fishing and large tracts of undeveloped land for conservation.
Specific recommendations were also made to improve Blue Hole, Cypress Creek Nature Preserve, Martha Knies, Oak Park and Welcome Center, Old Baldy Park, the Patsy Glen Refuge and Sunrise Park.
Following the adoption of the plan, spectators in the council chambers burst into spontaneous applause.
