The City of Waterloo is making a new Waterloo Park Master Plan. The idea is to make a plan about how the park will develop in the next 20 years. Members of the public were invited to participate in a task force starting in 2007, and this task force has come up with a Preliminary Concept Plan (related documents available in PDF format here). There were recently some public consultations about the plan, and I get the impression that members of the public are encouraged to participate in the process. So if you’re interested in this stuff, there’s still a chance to get involved. If nothing else, you can fill out the Preliminary Concept Plan Questionnaire (PDF file), and register for their email list to keep up-to-date on events and the planning process and get newsletters.

One thing that I find a bit frustrating is navigating the City’s webpage and making sense of the information I find. I’m not sure what would change at the park if the plan is approved. I would like to see a summary of that. Perhaps one already exists, but I didn’t find it. If nothing else, the projected increase in population living near the park, and the introduction of Light Rail Transit along the railway tracks that go through the park will have an impact. Presumably this is accounted for in the plan.

Waterloo Park is one of my favourite parts of the city. I like to hang out there, sit at the picnic tables, walk by the water, admire the flowers and shrubs in the Victorian Garden, watch the wildlife, and sit on the rocks by the zoo. I hope that the park will continue to be as awesome in the future as it is now.

If you’d like to see what the park looks like, there are photos of Waterloo Park on Flickr, including some of my own.

Kudos to the City of Waterloo for involving the public in urban planning, and recognizing the importance of public spaces. Perhaps we can also get a blogging conversation going on about it. Anyone?