Habitat + Recreation: Balancing Interests to Craft Success

The space, funding, and resources for both environmental and recreational projects is limited. Outdoor spaces have seen added pressures to be more and do more for our communities and natural systems. This has required projects to harness creative partnerships, utilize unique funding structures and implement a variety of project delivery methods. We have found that leveraging the resources and objectives of environmental and recreational projects together breeds success. Panelists explored economic and quality of life benefits that are realized when urban areas embrace these projects, understand who the players are, identify potential funding sources, and address how we can plan and design spaces in the future to capitalize on the unique advantages of balancing habitat creation / restoration and recreational opportunities to improve our communities.