DEPARTMENT OF PARKS, RECREATION, AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS STRATEGIC PLAN © DPRCA 675 Ponce De Leon • 8 th Floor Phone 404-817-6764 • Fax 404-853-7643 Email: [email protected] As of November, 2005 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs is deeply appreciative to all of the people and organizations that helped us create our vision, mission and strategic plan. Through countless planning sessions, stakeholder outreach, staff discussions and individual meetings, the following plan has been developed. We view this as our five year roadmap, and will work diligently to keep focused. We thank everyone involved, mentioned specifically, or in the aggregate. Without you, we would not have been able to produce this body of work. Mayor Shirley Franklin City Council Members Lisa Borders, President Carla Smith Debi Starnes Ivory Lee Young, Jr. Cleta Winslow Natalyn Mosby Archibong Anne Fauver Howard Shook Clair Muller Felicia A. Moore C.T. Martin Jim Maddox Joyce Sheperd Ceasar C. Mitchell Mary Norwood H. Lamar Willis City of Atlanta Departments The Office of Parks, COA The Office of Park Design, COA The Office of Recreation, COA The Office of Cultural Affairs, COA The Atlanta Civic Center Management Services, DPRCA Advisors Alysin Foster and Frank Foster Centre for Strategic Management Special Thanks Margaret Connelly Miranda Mack McKenzie Preston Elliot Frank Monteith Rosel Fann Gail O Neill Rob Frazer Parents of the Dolphin Swim team Angela Graham Arthur Parks Peggy Harper Norman Smith Stephanie Hughley Sam Yi Debbie McGown Mtamanika Youngblood Dianne Harnell Cohen, Commissioner Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Phone: 404-817-6764 email: [email protected] 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Executive Summary II. Mission/Vision III. Living Values Statement IV. Demographics and Population Trends V. Background/Overview VI. Key Stakeholders VII. Current-state Assessment VIII. Departmental Strategies IX. Key Success Measures X. Budget/Funding Request XI. Conclusion XII. Appendix 3 I. Executive Summary In May of 2004, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs (DPRCA) embarked on a Strategic Planning process to embrace the Living Values under Mayor Shirley Franklin’s administration and create a Mission and Vision for our department. The resulting Vision and Mission will be used to guide our policy and resource decisions over the next 5 years. The proposed Vision forms the foundation of our Strategic Plan. Vision: To enhance the quality of life for all through nationally acclaimed excellence in Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs. Mission: To provide all citizens with the highest quality parks, facilities, recreational programs and cultural experiences. This strategic plan document supports both our Mission and Vision by proposing specific Departmental Strategies that are core to our success. Departmental Strategy One Provide a park system that is safe, well maintained, abundant, accessible, and well funded. Departmental Strategy Two Provide accessible recreation programs which afford an opportunity for after school, summer youth, teens and senior populations to be inspired, grow, and achieve through learning and life-skill experiences. Departmental Strategy Three Infuse diverse arts and cultural experiences into the community through advocacy, support, education and presentation. Departmental Strategy Four Provide state-of-the-art facilities by assessing, prioritizing, and upgrading existing capital assets. Departmental Strategy Five Create an environment that inspires, empowers, recognizes, and values an engaged work force. This five-year strategic plan is action-oriented and invokes a response from all constituencies to perform to higher standards. Our combined efforts will result in overall service improvements and move DPRCA closer to our goal of “Best-in-Class” service. 4 II. Mission/Vision Vision To enhance the quality of life for all through nationally acclaimed excellence in Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs. Mission The mission of the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs is to provide all citizens with the highest quality parks, facilities, recreational programs and cultural experiences. 5 III. Living Values Statement Living Values DPRCA embraces the Living Values set forth by Mayor Shirley Franklin’s administration as follows: 1. Integrity – We will strive to uphold the public trust by being honest, competent, and consistent in our beliefs and actions. We will hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards of moral and ethical conduct. 2. Striving for Excellence – We strive to deliver “Best in Class” services and superior customer service. We promote and reward excellence as demonstrated by our employees. 3. Sound Fiscal Stewardship – We believe that fiscal responsibility and the prudent stewardship of public assets is essential for public confidence in government. 4. Teamwork – We value working as a team and we recognize that more can be accomplished working together than working individually. 6 IV. City of Atlanta Demographics and Population Trends Demographic shifts taking place within the City of Atlanta over the next five years will result in a population that is larger, older, and more ethnically diverse. Important to note is that these changes will not occur consistently across all areas of the City. In general, districts with a well-diversified economic base will experience the healthiest growth. Nothing is as fundamental to economic activity in the long- term than the size of the population base. Demand for DPRCA services may vary somewhat over-time on a per-capita basis but the large and long-term movements depend on the number of customers and the characteristics of those customers. In Atlanta there are a number of important long-term demographic changes that will affect the future demand for services. These trends include: Changes in the size of the population These forecasts indicate that greatest increases in the proportion of City Changes in the age structure of the population population change between 2005 and 2025 will take place in the Central Changes in the ethnic makeup of the population Business District and Northeast Atlanta. The remaining areas within the City will experience modest declines in proportional representation. Understanding these trends at the State and Regional level will help to highlight local level Sources: Atlanta Regional Commission, Atlanta Office of Planning trends and implications. AREA/YEAR 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 However, trends and CBD 9,232 10,603 12,117 13,603 15,774 averages that occur at the NW Atlanta 73,079 75,225 79,927 84,628 91,189 State and Regional levels NE Atlanta 7,129 79,067 88,629 98,190 106,688 may not always provide an SE Atlanta 83,031 85,715 8,949 94,182 100,103 accurate picture of what SW Atlanta 99,628 101,511 107,493 113,474 120,886 occurs at the Atlanta Buckhead 69,130 71,487 74,149 76,811 81,012 Submarket level*. It is for Atlanta/DeKalb 30,895 31,724 32,301 32,877 33,538 this reason, that we are providing an overview of trends in the Atlanta Submarket which will most likely have a direct impact on service demand and DPRCA’s ability to deliver services to a changing constituency over the next 5 years. The Atlanta Regional Commission and Office of Planning forecast the rate of growth for the State of Georgia to be approximately one half times greater than the City’s rate between the years of 2005 to 2010. The forecasted rates are essentially the same until the year 2020, when the City’s population growth begins to exceed the state’s rate. *The City is undertaking a new study of Development Impact Fees, due for completion in late 2005 or early 2006. To accommodate new growth and to maintain the quality of life, the City will continue to make improvements to the physical infrastructure, adopt innovative methods to improve the delivery of public services, adopt smart growth principles to facilitate development in the most cost effective and rational way, expand the amount of public Greenspace, protect and enhance the physical, cultural and historic resources of the City, develop the economy to provide the right mix of economic opportunities for all of the citizens and visitors, provide housing incentives and assistances programs that w7ill create an appropriate and broad range of housing options for all of Atlanta’s residents, provide a high level of public safety, and work cooperatively with the Atlanta Public School System to improve the quality of education being received by children of Atlanta. V. Background and Overview The City of Atlanta's Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs parks and facilities system consists of approximately 3,400 acres or approximately 3.8% of the City’s land area. The City’s parks vary from nature preserves to active regional parks and its recreational and cultural facilities from small recreation centers to large cultural complexes, such as the Atlanta Civic Center and the Chastain Park Amphitheater. Atlanta is also home to two National Park Service properties: the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in downtown Atlanta, and the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area in North Atlanta. Centennial Olympic Park, located in downtown Atlanta, is operated by the State of Georgia. DPRCA‘s inventory includes 345 parks out of which 8 are designated as regional Parks, 13 as community parks, 50 as neighborhood parks and 9 as large nature preserves. The rest of the parks fall under small preserves, block parks, circles, triangles and beauty spots. The facility inventory includes 33 recreation centers, five indoor and seventeen out door pools, five tennis centers and seven cultural facilities. In addition special recreational facilities include four eighteen hole golf courses and one nine hole golf course, Southside Sports Complex, Lake Allatoona Resident Camp and John A. White Junior Training Golf Course. In an effort to maximize our resources, joint use facilities with Atlanta Public Schools are at Benteen Park, Cleveland Ave. Park, Dunbar, J.