Press Release
From County of Nassau
10/28/22 @ 11:50 a.m.
At the American Planning Association’s Florida Chapter Conference held in Orlando this past August, Nassau County received a State-wide ‘Award of Excellence’ in the Best Practices category for the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Master Plan (PROSMP).
The Nassau County Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan (PROSMP) represents a fundamental shift in how public and private recreation demands are addressed from a county-wide perspective. The PROSMP couples traditional planning and design principles with progressive regulatory standards that treat parks as essential infrastructure similar to electricity, water, and streets. This shift in local public policy has charted a course for developing and maintaining a fiscally sustainable parks system that is representative of all citizens.
County Manager, Taco Pope, AICP, stated, “It is a great honor for the County to receive an Award of Excellence from the American Planning Association. It’s an even greater honor to play a small part in facilitating public policy that will improve the quality-of-life for residents of Nassau County for generations to come”.
The annual award for Best Practices from the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association is given to a project or program that represents “…a significant advancement to specific elements of planning. This category emphasizes results and demonstrates how innovative and state-of-the-art planning methods and practices helped to implement a plan”.
While Nassau County has received several regional and state-wide community planning awards over the past few years, this particular award is Nassau County’s first state-wide ‘Award of Excellence’. The distinction as an ‘Award of Excellence’ indicates that the review panel for the American Planning Association found Nassau County’s PROSMP to be innovative, of superior quality, and transferable to other communities.
Information on the Nassau County PROSMP and implementing legislation can be found at https://bit.ly/NassauCountyPROSMP.
A special thanks to the late Dr. David Barth for all his hard work and efforts. He was instrumental in creating a plan that will serve the residents and future generations for years to come. We encourage residents to view a 2-minute project spotlight/video that highlights the project and recognizes Dr. Barth posthumously on this outstanding achievement. To watch the video, click below:
