Agenda 11-16-2021; 8-c - Approval of Interlocal Agreement Renewal and Master Plan - Little River Regional Park and Natural Area

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28 Public Input And Current Usage Initial Park Advisory Committee and Use Recommendations - 6 L �4• Durham and Orange counties acquired the 391-acre property in 1999. In the fall of 2000, both boards of county commissioners established the Little River Park Advisory Committee to assist the staff in the develop- ment of use recommendations and proposed facilities for the new park.This early input included research by staff,comments and review by the Committee,and a series of community input meetings.Seven meetings 3" were held during the fall of 2000 and spring of 2001, m during which members toured the property,evaluated resources,received input from several users'groups and held two larger community meetings to gather input from potential park users and adjacent property _ owners. The resulting report was adopted by the two Boards of County Commissioners for future park development. The allowed uses included hiking trails,picnic area,a The 2019 demographic data indicates that approxi- hard surface loop trail,open play meadows,playground mately half(51%)of the number of park visitors were and fishing.Several conditional uses that were rec- from Durham County,with Orange County providing ommended if additional requirements could be met, 33%or one-third,and the remainder(16%)from other including horseback riding, mountain biking and group counties,with Wake County leading this contingent. camping.The development of Little River Park has Overall,visitors from other counties were significantly accommodated all of the recommended uses except higher in 2019 than in 2012. On average,84%of park for horseback riding,due to the conditional use require- users came from Durham and Orange counties,allow- ments (See Appendix B). ing this Master Plan to be developed with substantial input from the park's primary users.While the data Recent Public Input skewed more heavily toward male respondents in 2012, Orange County and Durham County staff developed in 2019 there was a more even gender representation. and distributed public input surveys in 2012 and 2019 There was also a good distribution of age represented to solicit user feedback and help guide development of in the 2019 survey. a park master plan.The surveys were available for park The surveys delved into more detailed questions re- patrons to complete (both onsite and online)for those garding reasons for visiting the park,and questions de- interested in contributing to the master plan process. signed to determine the preferences for how Little River The results of the surveys can be found in Appendix E. Park moves forward regarding facility development, A total of 193 park users completed the survey in 2012 programming,and options for funding these improve- and another 123 users took the survey in 2019.The ments.The majority of questions followed a format that surveys collected informational and demographic data, asked respondents to rate the questions on a scale of a summary of which follows: 1 (low)to 5 (high),depending on how important they thought each question was to the future of the park. 16 Little River Regional Park&Natural Area Master Plan