The Woodlands was established as a nature-oriented community surrounded by protected open space areas. The community’s legacy of parks and open space has evolved over the years into 150+ parks and 220 miles of pathways.
Asakura Robinson along with Pros Consulting has been engaged to lead a comprehensive assessment of the parks system and engage the community to more fully understand current recreation needs and future trends. The objective for the project was to take stock of the array of park facilities and amenities and to leverage resources to better serve the community’s needs. The team analyzed demographics, recreational trends, public engagement feedback and survey data, as well as facility assessments in order to develop a series of recommendations.
Engagement efforts included Village Association Meetings to introduce the community to the project along with an online survey to collect feedback. Input from the 2,000 responses confirms that the parks and recreation system is integral to the quality of life in the community.
The final report summarizes the current challenges of the system and provides a series of guidelines and strategies to leverage resources to address existing community needs in the near term while also supporting long-term goals for recreational tourism and economic development.
Public engagement for the Needs Assessment builds off a history of engaging residents and park users in the planning process. The feedback allowed the team to develop an innovative park user profile that identifies specific needs based on resident’s lifestyle to improve how the parks system can respond to current and future needs.
While undeveloped land today, the South Gosling concept plan was developed as a large-scale implementation project and serves as a vision for the park of the future. The design carefully balances goals for nature-based recreation, recreational tourism, and community spaces to create a signature park for residents and visitors.
