Elmhurst Park District developing vision for its future

Elmhurst residents attending an open house this week urged park district officials to pursue plans for dog parks and an indoor sports facility.

Now it's up to the officials to decide if those and other ideas should appear in the district's next comprehensive and strategic plans. Once completed, both documents will help drive long-term planning and guide decision-making in the district for three to five years.

As part of Vision 2020 - the district's comprehensive and strategic planning process - officials over the next two months will analyze results from an earlier survey, other public feedback and additional information to identify and prioritize the district's needs.

"We want to ensure we have a clearly defined vision for the future that's based on the interests of the community," said Laura Guttman, strategy and planning coordinator.

During a recent survey of 328 residents, respondents said the district should focus on adding more walking and biking trails along with indoor fitness facilities.

Seventy-six percent of households that responded to the survey indicated a need for more walking and biking trails. Sixty-one percent also listed indoor fitness as a need, and 47 percent listed a desire for indoor running and walking tracks.

The survey results also showed support for creating the district's first dog parks.

So Guttman said it wasn't a surprise when residents during a Wednesday night open house expressed a desire for dog parks and an indoor sports facility.

"We had good feedback from an interaction with the residents who attended the meeting," she said.

The district chose to develop the strategic and comprehensive plans at the same time because the existing documents will expire at the end of the year. The strategic plan will cover a three-year period while the comprehensive plan will cover five years.

The goal is to have the comprehensive and strategic plans ready to go to the park board for review in May or June.

In the meantime, residents still can make comments through the Vision 2020 website at epdvision2020.com. Another open house will be held in late April or early May.