News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
UCDD encouraging Upper Cumberland counties to develop a master plan for parks and recreation in their individual areas.
Deputy Director Tommy Lee said seven of the region’s fourteen counties do not have recreational plans for their communities. Lee said not only does a master plan establish an area’s priorities moving forward, it also makes them eligible for Local Parks and Recreation Fund Grants.
“Sometimes it’s $500,000, sometimes it’s up to $1,000,000,” Lee said. “The state kind of goes back and forth on that but you’re eligible for that grant and that’s a fifty-fifty match. So that’s big grant dollars there that you would become eligible for. And then also you become eligible for the Recreational Trails Program Grant.”
Lee said cities are also eligible for these grants with the 60 percent of the local parks and rec grants designated specifically for cities and towns. Lee said the best way to make a master plan is to partner every entity in a county together so they all become eligible for funding.
“It’s the first question I’ve been asked when I’m talking to the parks and rec people in the state,” Sparta Mayor Jerry Lowery said. “Do we have a master plan? That’s the first questions they’ve asked me.”
Lee said the Recreational Trails Program Grant is an eighty-twenty match grant meant to pay for trail repairs and similar projects.
Lee said anyone who needs help developing a plan can speak with him or anyone else in the planning and community development department.
“We can assist you with writing a grant to help pay for that,” Lee said. “A great one is the Healthy Built Environment Grant from the Department of Health and those are either annually or biannually. They come around, you know, pretty regularly.”
Lee said White, Fentress, Van Buren, Cumberland, and Jackson Counties have parks and rec plans while Putnam and Clay Counties each have one in progress.
