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neighborhood park component of the development in order to provide instant amenities and new home sales.

This practice has obvious benefits to the City, but care must be exercised to ensure quality standards and maintenance factors are incorporated into these park designs.

Review mechanisms must ensure the

maintenance and functionality of the land mass are balanced with aesthetic benefits. Designs that result in disproportional maintenance costs should be altered before implementation, whether or not the developer has the initial maintenance responsibility. After something is installed, it is more difficult, time consuming and expensive to scale back the design.

Policy 1: Ensure park designers consider long-term costs, maintenance

Issues

• Initial park designs don’t necessarily take into account maintenance needs. • Developers’ plans for park development are not always created with long-term costs or total community interests in mind.

Strategies

• Park design, whether done by developers or the City of Dublin, must be reviewed with the long-term cost of maintenance. The financial commitments required for upkeep of public land mass should be known prior to development.

• Maintenance and functionality of park land must be given equal weight to

aesthetics when evaluating development plans.

• Designs that create disproportional maintenance costs should be altered before implementation.

Policy 2: Incorporate long-term financial considerations into park planning

Issue

• As parks develop and as land is acquired, operating budgets must keep pace with the additional areas of responsibility.

Strategies

• Convert selected areas of existing turf grass to a more naturalized

environment and track any resulting

Policies, Issues and Strategies