Comprehensive Planning

There is no time like the present to plan for the future. Comprehensive planning initiatives enable parks and recreation providers to understand their position in the marketplace, establish a vision for the future, and develop an action plan to systematically advance their mission. Our approach includes analyzing your resources, assets, programs, and services, connecting the planning process with your community via digital, traditional, and face-to-face public input techniques, envisioning your opportunities to improve your holistic business model and serve your constituents in contemporary, effective ways, prioritizing the objectives that most clearly help you accomplish your goals, and creating a detailed plan to implement the comprehensive master plan deliverable to document the process, inputs, and outcomes to effectively communicate your vision to your community.

A few sample projects follow below.

McHenry County, Illinois

McHenry County Conservation District (MCCD) is a leader of open space preservation in Illinois and the Midwest region, and a model for forest preserves, conservation districts, and not-for-profit preservation groups. Having successfully passed a $200 million referendum to support their mission to maintain, preserve, restore, and acquire sensitive natural areas for water quality, ground water recharge, forests, prairies, and unique intrinsic ecosystems, they hired Hitchcock Design Group to prepare a Comprehensive Site Development and Public Access Plan. This included gathering comments from the Board of Directors and Staff, and public input through facilitated workshops and a county-wide survey. Because the District includes approximately 20,000 acres, the planning process reviewed both macro and micro scale resources. Based upon detailed needs assessments performed at 25 public accessible sites, recommendations were made regarding site opening, closing and redevelopment.