Long-Range Plans
Each regional park or trail has its own master plan
Minnesota law requires each regional park implementing agency to develop a park long-range plan in consultation with all affected municipalities. While the statute requires only one plan per regional park implementing agency, the Met Council requires individual plans for each regional park, park reserve, regional trail, and special recreation feature. Long-range plans are critical in defining the specifics of acquisition, development, and operation of regional facilities.
The plans include the park agency’s estimates of use and costs. The long-range plan process allows residents to help develop the plan and other units of government to learn how what is planned for a park will affect them. Collectively, these plans form the regional park implementing agencies’ part of the regional system plan.
The Met Council reviews long-range plan for consistency with the 2040 Regional Parks Policy Plan and other Met Council policy plans. Inconsistent plans will be returned with comments to the park agency, which must revise and resubmit their plans to the Met Council. For a park agency to receive a grant for acquisition or development, the proposed project must be consistent with a Met Council-approved long-range plan.
To inform park demand forecasts, and public engagement and equity analyses, the Met Council provide agencies contextual information such as demographic data for the region and their jurisdictions. The data is disaggregated by race and ethnicity, household income, ability, age, educational attainment, and gender. This information helps identify communities who may be underserved by the regional parks system.
Long-range planplans adopted by the Metropolitan Council in 2020: