Over the next year NVRPA will be engaged in a strategic planning process as we chart a course to grow our organization as serve the citizens of Northern Virginia better. This planning process will rely heavily on two foundation's documents. One is the new Mission Statement that expresses what we are about as an agency. The second, will be a park needs assessment for the region. NVRPA has regional put out a request for proposals to survey firms to help us generate this data.
The survey is based on phone interviews with homes selected at random from our member jurisdictions. The interviewer asks the resident a series of questions about what type of park facilities members of their household most use and value. The end result of this, are statistics that we can point to with some certainty that show what the public most want out of their parks.
Over the last four years, phone interview surveys have been conducted on park needs in the City of Alexandria, Arlington County and Fairfax County. These survey were all conducted with a very similar methodology and similar questions. A copy of these survey results is available at the following web sites.
Alexandria City park needs assessment:
http://alexandriava.gov/recreation/pdfs/2_CITIZENS_SURVEY_RESULTS
Arlington County park needs assessment:
http://www.co.arlington.va.us/Departments/ParksRecreation
/forums/openspace/docs/pdf/survey_summary.pdf
Fairfax County park needs assessment:
(This park needs assessment contains only a sampling of the survey results. For a complete copy of the survey results contact NVRPA for a CD with the complete survey results.)
http://www.co.fairfax.va.us/parks/needsassessment_final.pdf
For this project we would like the following tasks to be completed by the contractor:
· Evaluate existing survey data referenced above and determine the questions that are similar enough to be compared. Use this list of questions as a template for a new questionnaire.
· Use the new questionnaire and conduct a new phone survey of homes in Loudoun County, the City of Falls Church, and Fairfax City.
· Use the existing park needs survey data from Alexandria City, Arlington and Fairfax Counties, compare it with the new survey data and do a statistical analysis for the entire region. This analysis should include information on the rankings of most needed/valued recreational amenities region wide, and differences between needs of the different member jurisdictions, if any.
When we have the final results it will be avaluablealuble planning to tool to help us know where to focus our efforts over next few years.
2 comments:
This process is going to be extremely useful and valuable to NVRPA. Especially, if we stay true to the mission statement.
After reading the Silver Lake article of plans for the Regional Park I'm surprised to see no mention of any indoor rec facilities that would benefit your aging population. No therapeutic indoor swimming, No indoor track. How about an indoor resort style putt putt golf and restaurant like NYC Central Park. Some of these can be income producing. Thanks for the opportunity. I look forward to this fabulous facility.
Post a Comment