Parks: Planning for the Unexpected
Parks are essential community assets that shape quality of life, foster connection, and contribute to long-term value.
Civic Minds Podcast Episode #1
In this episode of Civic Minds, Environmental Design Group (EDG) Park Development Specialist Tom James shares insights from nearly 50 years in the industry, exploring what thoughtful park planning looks like in practice, the processes that guide it, and how to prepare for the unexpected challenges that will invariably arise along the way.
Why Planning Sets the Foundation
Tom explains that strong park planning is critical to avoiding costly missteps and creating spaces people actually enjoy. Without a clear direction, projects can become reactive, leading to designs that don’t fully consider the user experience or natural setting. A well-developed plan helps guide decisions early and reduces the need for rework later.
Planning for the Unexpected
A key takeaway from the conversation is that plans need to remain flexible. Whether it’s an unexpected land donation or shifting community needs, opportunities don’t always align with what’s been mapped out. Tom emphasizes that successful public space planning treats plans as adaptable frameworks, allowing teams to respond quickly while still working toward long-term goals.
Listen to the full episode to take a deeper look at master planning processes for parks with Laura Hengle and her guest, Tom James.
Civic Minds Podcast Episode #1 Transcript
Laura Hengle (Host):
Welcome to Civic Minds, a podcast by Environmental Design Group highlighting civil engineering, planning, and design. I’m your host, Laura Hengle.
Laura:
We’re so happy to welcome Tom James as our guest today. After his retirement as Director of the Medina County Parks District, he now works for Environmental Design Group as a Park Development Specialist. He has nearly 50 years spent in the industry, and today, Tom will share his insights into planning for the unexpected.
So welcome, Tom.
Tom James:
Thank you.
Laura:
I’d really just like to start with just having you give us a little history about what drew you to a career in parks. It’s a great place to work, but what drew you there?
Tom:
Well, as a kid growing up in a rural area of Ohio, I had easy access to open spaces. Just a short bicycle ride or walk from where I lived. As I grew older and I got into school, I spent a lot of time out hiking with different people over the years.
Then, in college, my summer job was working at a park in the Muskingum Conservancy District. That’s where I first got my initial inclination that I’d be interested in exploring that more as I went into the future.
Laura:
Well, it seems to have worked out for you. And I know you have experience in many different things and can talk on a lot of topics, but as was mentioned in the opening, we’re going to focus on planning, and we’ll get into particularly planning for the unexpected. So, let’s kind of dive in a little bit to your thoughts on, as it relates to parks projects and parks districts, the importance of planning.
Tom:
To know what direction you’re going and how you are going to develop things, you need to have a plan. Haphazard development often leads to mistakes that have to be corrected or redone in the future.
An example would be when I started as Director of Medina County, there were a number of picnic shelters that were built in parks that were sort of right off the grill of cars that were parked in the parking lot. That wasn’t a pleasant setting for folks who wanted to enjoy the parks, and they didn’t get heavy use as a result.
So, over the next few years, we had to take another look at that park and spot that picnic shelter in a more pleasant area for people. Still within reasonable walking distance because you know there’s a lot of accoutrements that come along with picnic shelter use, but get them away from the parking and a more natural environment to enjoy as they’re having their reunion or picnic or whatever.
Laura:
Oh. So, a good plan would have maybe prevented that from having to be reworked, is what you’re saying?
Tom:
Correct.
Laura:
That makes sense. So, planning comes in different types. There’s strategic planning, master planning, long-term, short-term. When you were going through your career, how did you work through those processes? What were the differences in those types of plans? What kind of says, “Ok, we need to take time and sit down and work out a strategic plan” vs. “We’re going to work on a master plan for this.”? How would you sort of generalize how you would approach that?
Tom:
Sure. When I started as Director in Medina County, there was a master plan for the development of the park district that had been done by consultants, probably 20 years before I started as Director. And that type of master plan is a vision for a long-term vision for the park district. So, it paints a broad-brush picture of where you want to focus on to acquire land for parks in Medina County. Looking at watersheds, looking at viewscapes, scenic areas in the county, and sort of laying out a broad plan for “it would be good to have parks in these areas going into the future”. Not so much specific sites as looking at an area of the county where it would be good to have a facility. That can include all the things I mentioned, plus population, or people, where would be a good spot close to them, but not down to the “buy this parcel” kind of thing.
And so, the next phase of that kind of approach is more of a strategic plan approach where you have to marry the resources you have and opportunities that are out there and what you’re going to be doing in your current funding period, which is typically the length of a levy. And you get more focused on “we want to go to this particular spot and acquire land for a park,” or, “we have this much money to develop a park in this levy period,” and getting more specific. And then there’s just a master plan for a site, so hey, you’ve got the site, now what do you do with it? So that’s more of a short-term master plan, not something that’s going to sit on the shelf, but this is what this property or this park is going to look like after we’ve done our work to convert it into a park for use by the public.
Laura:
As far as the levies, as you say, kind of looking at that in the term of the levy, did you work in things that were very short-term, some that were longer-term? Was it a lot of different varieties of like “this is going to be funds coming in for this amount of time, and then we’re going to hope for renewable, but we may not get it”, or “this one’s a long tenure” or whatever. How did you deal with that, or did you have scenarios in which you kind of had to look at those different levy terms?
Tom:
Yes, certainly. I’ve learned even more about that working with EDG as I’ve worked with different park districts around the state. Levy terms are infinite in terms of what you can ask for. Most people try and get a ten-year cycle, because that gives you time to accomplish something with some money that you’ve been given. Before you go back and ask the voters for a renewal or for more money, you’ve been able to prove what you can do with the resources you’re given. Some park districts do operate on a five-year term. So, plans that are developed for a five-year term obviously have to be more short-sited and more immediate, so again, you need to accomplish things during that levy period to support your ask when you come back to the voters in five years. You need to be able to point to “we’ve done these things with the money you’ve given us. Please renew this levy or give us a little bit more money so we can do some additional things.” So, in a short-term situation like that, you’re really creating a short-term master plan for the park district and a strategic plan towards the end of that period to talk about the next levy period.
Laura:
So it’s a constant cycle of planning?
Tom:
Yes.
Laura:
And as you said at the beginning, the unexpected comes along all the time. “We didn’t expect that this parcel of land was going to be bequeathed to the park district or the city,” or “we didn’t anticipate that there was going to be this impact from maybe a natural occurrence,” or whatever. So, if you’ve made the strategic plan to follow along with the levy period and then suddenly something unexpected happens, what’s the best way forward to either not miss out on an opportunity or to also avoid any other downsides or consequences?
Tom:
So I guess, the term planning for the unexpected is something that anybody who’s in park management has to have in the back of their minds. Something you never know, the phone is going to ring, something’s going to come for you that you didn’t anticipate in that planning period, and you can either hide your head in the sand or turn down that opportunity because it’s not in your plan, but that doesn’t really make sense.
I guess, an example I would use of that is when I started my job, I started in May. In December the year before, the park district was given 125 acres of land. This piece of land was not in the park districts long-term master plan nor in their short-term plans. Some directors may say, “well, it’s not in our plan, so we can’t take the land”. But 125 acres of land at no cost to the public in one of the most scenic areas of the county, you shouldn’t be walking away from that because you absolutely have to always be planning and adjusting planning. Plans are not written in stone; they have to be flexible. So that 125 acres was taken in, and actually, the very first ten-year levy term that the park districts had ever had, they had not passed the levy until four years before I started as director.
The family (the couple) that donated the land lived on the land and wanted to see it developed during their lifetime so that they could see the benefit that they gave to the community. They wanted to see people enjoying the new park on the property. So, plans were adjusted, and funding was found to do the creation of this park during that levy period, which turned out to be a good thing because people really enjoyed this new park, which helped us when it came to the next levy request. Probably the most important thing was, that couple, the man and wife, the piece of property had been in their family since the late 1800’s, got to talk to people who were out enjoying that park, having a picnic, walking the trails, just enjoying the open spaces, and were able to share that experience and really enjoy seeing people enjoying their gift to the community.
Laura:
So what’s great in that scenario is you had the opportunity for something unexpected with this 125 acres, which then teed you up to go, as you talked about before, to make those asks for continuing levies, new levies, because everyone is like “look at the impact this has had.” If they wouldn’t have donated the land and then if we wouldn’t have done something with it, then no one sees the potential. And it takes the team to find the potential. And then for the community to say “I would never have guessed that we could have done something like that.” So, again, the unexpected was a windfall in this case.
Tom:
Yes, and that donation led to others. Other folks in the community that saw that example and donated their land as well. And there’s also the opportunity to get a piece of land that you don’t get to develop, that folks are still living there, and they don’t want anybody there, during their lifetime, but it’s there. It’s in the pocket, so to speak, and you can make a plan for what that will be once it’s available for use by the public.
Laura:
And I know that there’s a lot of stages for that, and part of that is working through concept plan, and then is there room for public input? How do you sort of balance out what the vision is of the park district leaders versus what the public might want? How do you kind of get through that process?
Tom:
Many grant opportunities that are out there to help build parks require some level of public input on the plan. Each park district in Ohio, believe it or not, is a little bit different in their focus, in the way that they go about things. The law is very broad and allows each park to kind of develop its own identity, but the most prudent approach to that is for the park staff to come up with that first concept, and work on a plan that they can then take to public leads and say, “Hey, this is what we have in mind for this property. This is what it looks like. Here’s the challenges. Here’s the opportunities. This is what we would like to do.” Then, offer the public the chance to have input on what they would like to see that you might have overlooked.
Laura:
Yeah, that’s great. And then that’s also going to say “They listened to us. They made this little bit of a pivot, little bit of a change, because we saw a need here that maybe someone else hadn’t seen.” So, I love that, and I didn’t realize that that was a requirement for some of the grants that you have, that level of input from the community.
Tom:
Many of the grants that are available to build parks, like the land water conservation fund, some of the trail funds, the Ohio Trail Fund, the Recreational Trail Fund, one of the questions you have to ask is, “How did the public have an opportunity to comment on your plan?”
Laura:
Oh, that’s great! So, you’ve had to be in a room with probably a lot of opinions.
Tom:
Well, yes.
Laura:
And then how about planning for a specific need, like perhaps that’s come up in one of these public meetings that you’ve seen yourself. Do you come to the table with “we understand there’s been murmurings in the community that we need a park for runners to be able to come to.” And you come there with something in mind or is it that you are going to have to get particular funding because this is going to involve a path and a trail or how do you plan for something specific if either the community or your own team has identified, whether it comes up out of the blue or it comes up unexpectedly or it’s been a long time coming?
Tom:
Again, it’s a matter of focusing on “when do you want to do this?” If you want to do it tomorrow, you’ve got a problem. So, you have to be able to handle it in time to get the necessary public input, to meet the needs of the grantor when you’re applying for grants. So, that requires a more long term vision in terms of creating a concept plan and getting the public input well in advance of an opportunity to apply for a grant, because though grant timelines are typically announced three of four months ahead of when they need to be submitted, which doesn’t give you a lot of time to organize a public meeting and a concept plan. You really need to have these things sitting there ready to go that you’ve been able to get public input on, so that when the opportunity arises, you are able to jump and get on that and apply for grants.
Laura:
So when something comes up and the community is saying, “Well we talked about that at last month’s meeting.” And they wonder why the shovel isn’t in the ground making that happen, it’s because there’s got to be a timeline to get funding together, to get the plan together, and that might not be in this cycle, it might be the next one. So, understanding the arm can be long on this.
Tom:
Yes, and that’s why when you do public meetings, you have to help folks understand the timeline. You know, “we’re here today to talk about a park that we’re going to apply for grants for, so it could be two to three years before anything goes with this plan.” On the other hand, if you have all local funding ready to go, you can go to a concept plan meeting and say, “We’re going to start construction next year.” So, it’s setting the expectation in that planning process, so people understand what it is you’re about.
Laura:
Yeah, which is very important to keep your constituents happy. Now, I know in the times that you’ve worked with Medina and even the work that you’ve done in Environmental Design Group, you’ve seen a lot of things, and you’ve had to come up with creative solutions around unexpected windfalls or whatever could be the cause of the unexpected. And you and I talked a little bit in preparation for today about some of those things. So, what sort of like the creative solutions that you came up with on a few of your projects? I know you mentioned Kingston Township and White Star Parks, if you want to give us a little deep dive into what the issue was and what the creative solution was in those, that would be great.
Tom:
Sure. In Kingston Township, down in Delaware County, just north of Columbus, was given a piece of land. It’s a very small township. I think the population is about 3,200, but they’re experiencing a lot of pressure from growth coming out of the Columbus area. As a matter of fact, adjoining this piece of property is a new subdivision that’s going to bring in another 160 plus residential units into their township. So, they had a plan developed to put their township offices on their piece of property, but there was a lot more property there, and so they wanted to come up with a plan for a park on this property that could be enjoyed by the residents of the township. Especially the people who are going to be moving in and ready to enjoy the property.
So, they contacted us about developing a plan, and this is an example of a plan that was developed to answer questions they had of “what can we do with this property?” Because they had no park experience. So, they worked with us to design a park for the property, and they were fully engaged. They helped identify stakeholders in the community to come in for an input session on “what would you like to see on this park?” Once we had the draft concept plan, they put that out on an internet to survey and got more input from the community of what they would like to see. Now they have this plan that they can point to that’s phased in a way that they can develop whatever it is that is most important at that time, so they had already developed a picnic shelter and restroom on the property. We designed a walking trail for them. There was a plan for a future soccer, or football, or pickleball, or basketball. There’s a community building in the plan. There’s a nature playground in the plan. All of these things are laid out in a fashion that they can take an element and go seek funding for that element. They already have the public input. People already said they think it is a great idea for their township. They have a cost opinion they can keep updated, so when they go to get a grant, they can say this is what it’s going to cost and be comfortable with that. It enables them to develop that as community demand goes, and one of the more critical elements is a paved walking trail that goes down into this new subdivision and connects the park. So, that might be one of the first parts they want to get funding for because it’s going to create this link to this already partially developed park, but would then encourage further development of the park as well.
White Star Park up in Sandusky County had a problem. The problem was that they developed a park on a quarry lake, which has become their most popular park with weekend attendance in the thousands every weekend in the summertime because it’s a beautiful swimming waters there in this quarry. The problem they ran into was again, it was initially developed without a long-term plan for the park, and it ended up with haphazard parking being developed, and not easy access to the swimming area, especially for handicapped individuals. So, our task was to look at this property and see what we could do to make the access for the public better than what they had. And we looked at the property, and we developed relatively easy ways to develop new parking areas closer to this beach area, while possibly eliminating some of the big parking areas further away from the site that they wouldn’t need anymore and organizing it in a way that made sense when you come into the park. Wayfaring, so you know that if you’re going to this parking lot or that parking lot, where the handicap access is, and just make it a friendlier experience for the people that are using the park.
Laura:
Again, if you have a lot of buy-in, a lot of activity, a lot of population going there every weekend, but now you can open that up to more people, or people that might have found it difficult to get there. My husband and I talk about this sometimes like, “why is the parking so far away?” and I know we are supposed to encourage walking, but when you’re carrying the fifty pound picnic basket, maybe you don’t want to talk that far to jump over to get in the water or maybe you need to by the time you’re there.
Tom:
That’s true. This last example was an example of, that was an internal planning process. This didn’t involve public input. They already had the public input. “We want convenient parking.” So, the challenge for the park district management team and EDG was, how can we take this footprint and fit in additional parking without damaging the experience, but still making it easier for people to access the most important asset.
Laura:
Yeah, just this lovely quarry. Before we end here, I’m going to ask you a question, and I didn’t tee this up in our prep, but so much of this does hinge on funding. Of course, you get the public input, but everything costs money. Have there ever been any particular projects you worked on that you had to get very creative about bringing together certain types of funding to make something work, and you’re like, “Well, let’s give this a try and see if it works,” and you’ve rolled the dice and it’s come together? Has there ever been any examples of that that you can cite?
Tom:
I don’t have any specific example in mind, but I guess I would talk about a plan that we were engaged to do for a piece of property that was being donated to the Licking Park District, and some adjoining communities got involved in terms of they didn’t like the fact that the park district was getting the land instead of them. So, there was a school district and a village that thought they should get the land. So that forced us to engage with those entities to say, “What we’re doing here can benefit you. You help us understand what you need, and we can include that into the overall plan for the park.” It was a little more difficult for the school district because they were looking for a site to build a school. We obviously couldn’t do that, but we were able to consider design elements for education purposes like nature education on site that they would have close to them and their existing facilities. Then, the village was interested in ball fields, and we were able to identify areas where the ball fields would be developed on donated land.
But, I think every plan that is conceived in the planning process, either by the district before it seeks help from consultants, or as the consultants are working on it, is always looked at in a manner that how can we help fund this? We’ve got this great idea, but it doesn’t help if it can never be built. So, most all of the plans that are developed have a list of “here’s where you go to help fund different elements.” White Star Park, the example I was just talking about, while they didn’t get public input for the plan, it was phased so they could go for a grant to do different elements and whatever made the most sense for that grant opportunity. So, and again, with the cost opinion, they’re able to go to that grant opportunity and say, “this is the overall need. We’re asking you to fund phase three, or phase one, or phase five, and this is the cost. Help us out here.” And then you can start pointing to “we’ve already done this with our own funds, and we need your help to do this,” or “we got a grant to do this, and we’re asking for you to help us do the other phase.”
Laura:
So it’s a never-ending carousel of matching this up with this up and “we’ve got this, but now we need this.” So well again, I think you know in the history of your career with the parks department and with us as well, you’ve seen a lot of things, you’ve done a lot of things, but at the end of the day, anything that promotes the park and gets the community out there is what I think most communities would like. I mean there’s always going to be naysayers and distracters but developing parks and improving them, people’s needs change over time, populations change and the fact that you’ve been on the forefront of that for so many different parks districts, including the ones that you’ve helped along in your time here with EDG so far, has been just a wonderful thing. I really appreciate you being here today to talk about all of the things that you’ve experienced and know, and if there’s any closing statement, I’d be happy to hear it.
Tom:
I think I’m going to throw out one additional example of park planning. The first park that was built in Medina County after I became the Director was a piece of land that had been owned by the district for a number of years. They didn’t have the funds to develop it, and we developed that park with a plan that was totally internal. We didn’t get any public input. We built it, we opened it, and it was different from any other park that had been built so far. One of the special things in that park was an old-growth forest on the property that attracted migrating neotropical songbirds, look it up, every spring and fall migrations season, so there were great birding opportunities. We worked with the Smithsonian Institute to make sure that anything we were doing wasn’t going to disturb those birds because they were the most important asset to that site.
So, this park had trails. It had a small, paved trail that went around the lake. It had a picnic shelter, but not a lot of mowed grass. There were meadows that were mowed twice a year, and the trails were placed very carefully in the woods because again, we didn’t want to disturb the nesting birds. I had so many people a year after this park had opened say, “that’s become my favorite park, and I can’t tell you why. There’s just a different feeling in that park.” And I knew why. It was because of the approach that was taken to make it different, to make you feel. You don’t see great expanses of mowed grass; you see nature everywhere. That is a proven thing that for human beings to go out and experience nature, on a firsthand basis, has a calming effect on you. It will lower your blood pressure. It’s a great experience. So, the whole intent of the design of that park was to give people that connection with nature. So, you don’t always have to have public input. It’s good to have it, but in some cases, the natural resource on the site is more important than what people might want to do. You want to make it available for them to enjoy, but without disturbing the natural resources.
Laura:
And did you know this about the birds, whenever you came onboard at Medina, that this was going to be something that you had to accommodate for in the development of this park space?
Tom:
Yes, because the Smithsonian had already been there doing studies.
Laura:
Okay, alright. So, it was teed up like “there’s this great place, but we need to work around this.” Which again, in the end, just led to this fabulous place and still probably, I mean I’m sure there’s been updates and whatnot, but probably it still stays in its natural state because it has to. That’s what gives everybody that sense of peace, and if we could get that in every community, that would be wonderful. In our own backyard sometimes, so yeah. But no, I think that, to your point, you know the end user isn’t always just the human element. It’s the natural one too. So it’s great to know that in the course of these plans that are being made, whether with public input or not, that the consideration is for all the people and living things that will be using it. As well as natural wildflowers that are protected, and all that type of thing. So, these are things that you’ve had to learn more about than you ever thought you would know when you were that little boy riding your bike around and thought, “Maybe I want to work in the park district someday.”
Tom:
That’s correct.
Laura:
So I want to thank everyone that’s been listening today, and I want to particularly thank Tom James, who is a park development specialist at Environmental Design Group, who has a long history in the parks community, for sharing all of his insights with us, and I hope everyone out there is getting to enjoy a park today or maybe tomorrow. Thanks.