Five-year plan approved for Elkhart Parks & Recreation, improvements to come

ELKHART, Ind. -- On Monday, Elkhart City Council approved a plan called ‘Our Parks: An Aspirational Master Plan for the City of Elkhart Parks’.

This is a five-year plan for the Elkhart Parks and recreation system, outlining goals and what residents want to see more of. The Department is looking for grant, planning more upgrades to current park spaces, and plans to create new infrastructure as well.

Jamison Czarnecki, the City of Elkhart Parks and Recreation & Superintendent, says a goal of this plan is to continue to improve parks based on community feedback from hundreds of people —which they’ve been gathering for a long time. He says it's a continuation of improvements they've been doing.

“The 5-year master plan that every community does throughout the state of Indiana is a great time to check in and say what it is that the community wants and what we can be doing to meet those goals and those needs,” said Czarnecki.

He said the city got a lot of positive feedback but learned that people wanted to focus on protecting the environment, creating more physical recreation opportunities, activating the waterways, and leaning into wellness opportunities.

Czarnecki says park improvements are happening now, and they have already upgraded six playgrounds this year. Going forward, they plan to address areas that need improvements.

“A lot of it comes down to deferred maintenance, focusing in on the opportunities around the existing infrastructure and how do we enhance that before we go after more new parks,” said Czarnecki.

Many people ABC57 spoke with said they use parks for walking, basketball, or bringing their kids to the playgrounds. Some people tell ABC57 that they’d like to see improvements continue.

Terri Thomas is an Elkhart resident who enjoys using the parks.

“Island Park in general–I like how it's spacious. And they've been re-done, so it's really nice, especially after the old dated stuff,” said Thomas.

Czarnecki says this master plan is focused mostly on operations and strategies for where they allocate time and energy for projects.

“The capital pieces, with what we fund and where, that's going to become a citywide capital improvement plan in the future, is the goal,” said Czarnecki.

He says Elkhart technically has 53 park properties and 35 community parks.

As far as future projects go, he says they will assess what funding is available and whether that money comes internally or through grant funding.

“The goal is to figure out strategically where we build parks and how we build those to be more economically efficient,” said Czarnecki.

ABC57 also asked about improvements residents say would like to see at Ideal Beach in Elkhart County.

Czarnecki says they are in the planning phases, looking at how it can meet people's expectations. ABC57 was not given an exact timeline.

He says the department had been addressing ‘deferred maintenance’ over the past five years.

“We have some things to do even further, and we have some facilities where we really want to look at what we can do to strengthen those. We recognize the importance people have for our parks. We know people love their parks and they want them to be better, but right now it’s just a matter of the funding mechanisms to say what makes sense where and what toolbox do we utilize,” said Czarnecki.

He says the city wants to invest in all its parks, but it's a matter of when, where, and how.

To learn more about the plan, Visit.