Policy Review Tool

Could not get this section to load. Happy to see the goals for the Parks that were published in the Lacey newsletter.

Would love to see some outdoor story telling trails for all ages, and some memory walks as well.

Lacey needs both an indoor and outdoor swimming pool. Many of the parks can accommodate an outdoor swimming pool. There are many health benefits of swimming. It is hard to get swim lessons in Thurson County, knowing how to swim saves lives, having pools would make it easier for kids to get lessons.

I fully support the improvements (i.e. additional pickleball courts and potential splash pad) to Rainier Vista Community Park, these will be great amenities for the community. However, I am concerned about the potential for increased traffic and parking overflow into nearby residential streets. In particular, cars often speed along Parkside Drive, and as more vehicles park along the roads, visibility becomes limited. There have already been several near-misses involving pedestrians, and this risk may increase with higher park usage. As the park expands, I strongly recommend incorporating traffic-calming measures such as clearly marked crosswalks, speed bumps, or additional speed limit signage to improve safety for all visitors and nearby residents.

Summary of Comments From Olympia Master Builders:
Lacey’s Parks & Recreation vision supports a livable and connected city. To ensure alignment with housing production and affordability, we recommend:

Clarifying how park impact fees will be structured, including offsets for infill and affordable projects;

Providing flexible compliance options for private open space requirements;

Integrating park planning with housing density and subarea zoning;

Ensuring parks are used to enable—not restrict—new housing capacity.

These refinements will help ensure that parks serve as a unifying asset across all neighborhoods and housing types.

Overview From Olympia Master Builders:
Homebuilder Perspective Overview
The Parks Element articulates a clear vision of a well-connected, inclusive, and high-quality recreational system. From a development standpoint, parks and trails are valuable neighborhood assets—but policies must:

Remain cost-conscious, especially regarding developer obligations

Support higher-density and infill projects with flexible options

Avoid using parks or open space requirements to limit residential density or growth

New parks need to be coordinated with housing. Developers need to set aside land for this. Parks should be walking distances to housing.

While I can’t read the policies from this document since they don’t come up (Although I can read the PCR Plan document) I want to make sure it’s clear that culture has a much broader definition than is being applied here. Culture is not only history, the customary beliefs, social forms and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group, or a shared group of people, but it includes arts, both structurally as well as performance arts: poetry performance, music, lectures on crafts, etc. What this plan doesn’t do is increase the definition of culture to its holistic definition. Now, if there is museum is built (which seems a little doubtful given its delayed emphasis), then cultural activities could be promoted in the additional rooms the museum would have. In the meantime, this plan should have a few policies that encourage the promotion of the arts as performance, but not just music. There should be ways to hold these activities at the various parks and promoted by the City.