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10-4 Orange County Comprehensive Parks and Recreation Master Plan CHAPTER 10 - Goals, Objectives, and Recommendations 10 For example, the County already has four park districts that are the basic level of service provision. This district-level service model has been in place since 1988. Changing away from existfng and planned district park service models would constf- tute a major disruptfon to the operatfon of existfng parks and the planning for new ones. This district park approach is also the basis for the “land dedica- tfon/payment-in-lieu of land dedicatfon” program that has been in place since the 1980s. Park planning, parkland acquisitfon and constructfon of new facilitfes in the last 15 years has been based on this premise. Most of the district park sites have been acquired and await funding for future constructfon. Only in the Bingham district of southwestern Orange County is there no identffied and land-banked district park site, and efforts are underway to secure that locatfon. It is possible to realize, from prior master planning and 15 years experience in operatfng parks, the types of parks needed. Recognizing that there needs to be some level of flexibility to address special cases, and that some park sites warrant a different level of treatment, the five types of parks and public open spaces noted in the Guiding Principles of Chapter 9 provide a framework that is consistent with previous planning and park constructfon, and a filter for iden- tffying and categorizing future needs:  Community Parks  District Parks  School Parks  Regional Parks and  Nature Preserve (Public Access Areas) The maps in Chapter 9 identffy the locatfons of existfng and future parks, and the service areas associated with them. It is important to note that the concept of service areas, in a county with significant rural areas, is more-accurately read as an area within which a park is considered to be well-located or “convenient.” It is not the intentfon of this plan to imply that all areas not within a defined service area are not served. Not all areas must fall within a service area circle. To do so would require embarking on an extensive and somewhat arbitrary plan of re- quiring parks in outlying areas where service areas overlap and the populatfon may be served ineffi- ciently. Community park service areas already over- lap due to community needs and existfng facilitfes. For example, the fact that the Cedar Grove Park service area does not capture the very northwestern- most corner of Orange County should not be read to mean that another park is needed to cover this “gap.” Indeed, there is nothing magical about the five-mile community park radius that is used and mapped. County residents living six miles away can and do use the park, and stfll may choose to frequent any of the area parks for that matter. Similarly, an additfonal two-minute drive tfme outside of a service area circle does not constftute the need for an addi- tfonal park facility (unless other community-specific factors through the master plan review process indi- cate otherwise). Service area boundaries are shown primarily as a way to identffy the homes and resi- dents that are within a defined distance. Additfonally, the County’s four district parks, when completed, have actual districts served based on transportatfon and land use patterns. These do not conform to a 10-mile radius from the park locatfon. Residents in Bingham Township may, for example, find it more convenient to visit and frequent the future Twin Creeks District Park (the Chapel Hill Township district park), and vice-versa. Service area definitfon is simply another tool to consider geography and immediacy, rather than the limits of residents who are served by a park. In fact, geographical service areas are better suited to municipal park planning than county park systems, as municipalitfes generally have more uniform levels of populatfon density, more expansive and multf-modal transportatfon networks, and walkability standards making parks within fixed distances (or the elimina- tfon of service area gaps) a more valid approach to urban parks planning. For that reason, a set of count- ywide parks standards is not practfcal, but rather, coordinatfon and consistency between the municipal and county standards is highly encouraged. 112