STARKVILLE – The service areas of city parks already cover much more of the population than officials expected. Adding three more parks over the next 10 years could place its coverage percentage in the company of some of the most recreation-friendly cities in the country.
City Planner Daniel Havelin presented GIS mapping data Friday at a board of aldermen work session showing 47.01% of Starkville’s population already live in the service area of an existing city-owned park. Taking into account the parks at Sudduth Elementary, Overstreet Elementary and Armstrong Middle School – for which the city has an agreement with Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District to allow use as public parks after school and on weekends – the coverage percentage rises to 54.19%.
“The national average is 39.2%,” Havelin said during the work session.
However, adding three parks in strategic areas as part of the city’s new 10-year parks plan – which is being developed – would mean as much as 62.72% of residents would live within a park’s coverage area, Havelin said.
“To put that in perspective, that is the same as Anaheim, California, and Austin, Texas,” he said. “That’s not bad company to be in.”
To do that, he suggested placing parks near Garrard and North Montgomery, behind the Greenbriar subdivision along South Montgomery and near the Pleasant Acres subdivision.
“The most underserved area is actually South Montgomery,” Havelin said. “There are just really no parks down there. … (A park near Pleasant Acres) is going to pick up a completely not served area that is mainly multi-family. And people who live in apartments have a higher need for green space because they don’t have a frontyard or a backyard. Any park that is close by is really going to get used.”
The GIS system used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and 2023 American Community Survey data to track populations and age demographics throughout the city, Havelin said. The city can use that amenities at existing parks to better capture the demographics they serve.
For example, the school parks included in the city partnership have equipment that match well with the student populations at those campuses but not necessarily neighborhood demographics.
Overstreet, specifically, a fifth-grade campus, has good playground equipment, but the neighborhood demographics are almost 61% 18-to-34-year-olds.
“That tells you that you need something like a walking trail, exercise facility, maybe a covered pavilion,” Havelin said.
Havelin recommended the city use this data, along with public input, to inform amenity updates park-system wide.
Sports Facilities Companies, a private contractor hired by the city to manage its parks, is helping put together a parks plan Mayor Lynn Spruill said could be finished and ready for public presentation by fall. While Havelin’s GIS project was more of an “internal analysis,” she expects the data will inform the final draft of the overall plan.
“I’m really excited about it. I’m also excited about our current status because I had thought we would have been much less (percentage) in service,” Spruill said during the work session.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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