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Disability Info
TextService Delivery
Residents desire recreational facilities and opportunities at parks near where they live and for all age groups and socio-economic populations. The Park Authority provides quality facilities that are well used, but may not be equitably distributed across all parts of the County or accessible to all groups. Countywide and specialty facilities, in particular, may not serve a true county-wide service area.
Trends related to this theme: Fairfax County is now one of the most populous and densely settled counties in the nation, with over one million residents. The increase over the past decades in population and employment coupled with shifts in sports participation rates and lifestyle changes such as the shift from unstructured play to organized sports; the shift from individual sport seasons to year-round play; the growth of travel teams and competitive play; and increased expectations from citizens has resulted in increased demand for rectangular fields for sports such as soccer, football, field hockey, lacrosse and cricket.
Countywide objectives related to this theme:
- Provide and equitably distribute facilities geographically to meet established facility service level standards and seek to minimize impacts of development on park service levels with proffered facilities and turnkey parks, land dedications and cash contributions through the County land use planning and development processes.
- Provide new kinds of parks and facilities in order to meet the County's changing needs. (Examples include urban parks and facilities to support emerging sports.)
- Use newer technologies and creative approaches to add capacity to existing facilities in order to meet the County's changing needs. (Examples include synthetic turf, full cut off and directed lighting, multiple use facilities, facility conversion, and scheduling improvements.)
- Re-examine park master plans to determine if parks are planned to best serve the needs of Fairfax County residents.
District-level Service Delivery strategy suggestions include: building new facilities, better distributing facilities across the County, planning for new urban parks in the County's growth centers, reviewing park master plans, and improving access to existing facilities outside Park Authority ownership (such as regional parks and school sites).
To address Service Delivery needs, district-level strategies in the Great Parks, Great Communities Plan apply the service level standards established in the 2004 Needs Assessment and adopted by the Board of Supervisors in the Countywide Parks and Recreation Policy Plan.
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