Parks department seeks turf at Walnut Creek and proposes fee cleanup as rentals grow

Parks & Recreation told council that field-reservation revenue and special-event attendance have grown significantly and that aging fields and vehicles limit the county's ability to meet demand.

Parks Director Chris said reservation revenue is up and the county is seeing more sport-club rentals and a rising need for year-round surfaces. The department proposed turfing the Walnut Creek soccer complex: three fields and associated work were budgeted at $2.1M (including contingency); the main-field-only option was quoted at about $1.4M. The department said a single-field option could be phased, but the full complex would provide more rental capacity and reduce weather-related cancellations.

Operational requests included converting two part-time site supervisors to full-time, two program/activity leaders, additional recreation-associate hours at high-demand centers (Indian Land and Springdale), and dozens of vehicle replacements (mini-buses and full-size buses) to support afterschool and special-event transportation.

Parks staff also proposed a cleaned-up, simplified fee schedule: consolidate adult-sports fees to a single $40-per-person adult-league rate, apply a 10% nonprofit discount across facility rentals (instead of many single-item nonprofit lines), and consolidate field-prep and athletic-complex rental language for clarity. Staff said the changes are intended to bring Lancaster's fees into alignment with neighboring jurisdictions and to make admin and invoicing simpler.

Council discussed funding tools: staff noted $1M in prior capital-sales-tax funding in the CIP and roughly $518K available in the impact-fee zone that could be used for regional park investments. Councilmembers suggested exploring a future recreation bond (similar to an earlier successful bond) as a funding vehicle for large projects. No project funding was approved at the workshop; council requested more detailed cost and funding-path analysis.