In November of 2002, the City Council adopted the Parks, Arts & Recreation Plan, which established the goals and policies of implementing new parks and selecting park and open space properties. This plan also amended the Growth Management Act ordinance, originally passed in 1994.

The plan inventoried existing city owned park land, and outlined future projects and estimated costs. The document also included an implementation schedule up to 2025.

In all, the inventory indicated that the City owns just below 900 acres of park land, of which 590 acres are undeveloped. This does not include state or federal lands. (Chp 6 p2)

The Parks plan projected their expenditures up to the year 2025. They estimate to spend about 5 million a year on land acquisition or development of current lands, using grants, taxes and levies. (Table 9 - Final Implementation Plan)

The document includes a huge push for the City to acquire the waterfront lands on the west side of Budd Inlet. Currently, the city owns about 32% of Budd Inlet shorelines within the city. [PAR 8.6: With the Port of Olympia, jointly improve public recreation facilities on the East Bay, West Bay, and the Port peninsula. (Ord. #5971, 12/14/99) Also: POS 4.4 An area from the 5th Avenue Bridge to West Bay Marina, from the west shoreline of West Bay to West Bay Drive is an important scenic waterfront that needs to be planned in a coordinated manner. Creating a vision for this area will involve a variety of stakeholders including property owners. Port of Olympia and other local, state and federal agencies and the public. A plan for this area may include recreation facilities, proposed changes in land uses and multi-modal transportation improvements. A planned waterfront from Percival Landing to the West Bay Marina will allow for predictable and organized public and private investments.

The growth management act as amended also includes this little provision, which I thought some folks might find interesting: POS ((4.4)) 4.5 Identify and preserve artesian well sites for future community parks. Ord. #5971

The document does not reference the isthmus as park land-- and areas pertaining to that geographic location simply refer to the importance of a West Bay/Percival Landing trail connection. The document does, however, relay the importance of a planned waterfront with public and private investments. I feel this is important to note-- the Isthmus park idea, as grand as it could be, has never been referenced by city or park planners as an area that needs to be preserved for open space.

Additionally, 14+ million for that land will completely skew the 5 million/yr that has been estimated for yearly acquisitions of park land in other areas of Olympia. Particularly, the plan references the desperate need and project for a 10 million dollar aquatic center in 2015.

I can't imagine spending 14+ (which will no doubt, when all is said and done, be upwards of 20+ million) on a few parcels of land, spiraling the Parks budget down the drain for a couple decade or so.

Anyway, here are the links to the Parks & Arts plan, which is a pretty interesting read. It has a great detail on the history of our parks, and the future of the parks programs, and the guidelines for future park selection.

http://www.ci.olympia.wa.us/cityservices/par/parplan/

Funding and Implementation Schedule