Q: What is a comprehensive plan?
A: A comprehensive plan is a document that contains all the elements of a traditional park master plan as well as the elements of a park management plan.
Q: What's in a comprehensive plan?
A: The comprehensive plan contains the vision and planning for the park for the next several decades. It sets the look and feel for the park; it helps us figure out what activities work best for the park; it gives us direction on how to keep the park healthy, safe, and enjoyable. The plan also helps us schedule renewal projects so that we can get them done on time and within budget.
The comprehensive plan includes direction on how the park is managed, with a focus on ecological and financial sustainability, and direction on how to manage historic features of the park. It works with an operations plan to form an all-inclusive approach to maintaining a landscape like Point Pleasant Park over many decades.
Q: What’s the operations plan about?
A: An operations plan deals with the "nuts and bolts" of running and maintaining a park on a day-to-day basis. Now that we have a strong direction for the park, and a thorough understanding of how to manage it, we can tailor an operations plan to help achieve and support the vision, goals, and guiding principals of the comprehensive plan.
Q: Doesn’t the Regional Plan give the park the direction it needs? Why does Point Pleasant Park need a comprehensive plan?
A: For parks, the Regional Plan sets out an overall vision for the parks system across the region. However, the Regional Plan does not specifically address how to protect and enhance the things that make each park a unique experience for the park user. The Regional Plan deals with the vision of a regional parks system and the park comprehensive plan deals with the unique characteristics and issues of an individual park.
Point Pleasant Park needs a comprehensive plan to protect and enhance the things that make the park a desirable place to visit. Here are some of the questions that will be addressed in the plan for the park:
What are the characteristics of the Park that created the sense of tranquility and expansive forest? What views to the ocean do we want to keep and what views do we want to block? How do we manage the forest so that generations to come will have healthy trees to walk under? What kind of trees grow best, look best, and where do we plant them so that they grow healthy and strong? How do we balance the popularity of the park with the overall health of the park? What do we include in a comprehensive plan that will support the management and operation of the park?
Other aspects of Point Pleasant Park which need consideration in the comprehensive plan include: park entrances do not reflect the beauty of the park; parking lots have been characterized as "grim"; directional and regulatory signs in the Park are either lacking or confusing; and buildings and furnishings lack a style and quality suitable for a park of such civic pride and natural beauty.
The comprehensive plan will address these questions and issues in order to help restore, regenerate, and renew Point Pleasant Park.