SAN DIEGO -- It’s been over 60 years since the city of San Diego last had a Parks Master Plan, but all that is about to change. City officials have started the process to build the Parks Master Plan and are now looking for community input for what the plan should include.

An interactive town-hall style event was held on Monday evening at the Golden Hill Recreation Center where Councilman Chris Ward spoke to members of the community and presented the ambitious plan.

“Today’s event helps kickoff community conversation about what we are going to do with all of our parks facilities for the next generation,” said Councilman Ward to The San Diego Chronicle.

“We have over 400 parks. Those include our big regional parks like Balboa Park and Mission Bay all the way down to community and neighborhood level parks.” 

The last Parks Master Plan that the city of San Diego had has back in 1956 and the councilman along with his colleagues in City Hall believe it is time for an update.

“Times change and the demographics change and we want to make sure that our parks and recreation facilities and programs reflect that change in population.”

Councilman Ward mentioned that similar events to this one were happening in each of the different city districts in order to get the input of the community of what should be included in the new Parks Master Plan.

One popular item on the suggestion board was mountain bike trails.

“I would like to see more designated mountain biking trails,” said San Diego native Kamala who is also a member of the mountain biking community. “Specific (areas that need improvements) Mission Trails, Los Peñasquitos Canyon and Lake Hodges come to mind.”

According to the Parks Master Plan official city website, the plan is currently wrapping up step one and beginning step two of four and is expected to be completed by the fall or winter of 2020.