Why a Strategic Plan for Parks and Recreation?
The Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department has been in existence since 1956 and since its inception has grown from 4 parks to a 45,000-acre system including 27 parks and encompassing a variety of urban and rural recreational amenities. For more than four decades, the County has focused on purchasing parkland and developing a network of regional parks and trails along the hillsides adjacent to the urban fringe and along the creeks that pass through the County’s urban areas. This “necklace of parks” concept was put into place in the early 1960’s and has guided park acquisition and development ever since the vision was adopted as the Regional Parks, Trails, and Scenic Highways element of the Santa Clara County General Plan. However, without a long-term strategy for parks, the Department will tend to base decisions about how it continues to obtain, plan, program, operate, and maintain parks on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes this involves inefficiencies and sometimes such an ap
