Winter Park Land Trust Kickoff
Go Green on February 28 – 6:00 pm — WP Farmers Market
Grab your Valentine and get ready to party!
Farmers Market — February 28 at 6:00 pm
Come celebrate the establishment of the Winter Park Land Trust with friends, food and music. Find out how you can be part of the mission of creating, enhancing and connecting our urban parks and green space for everyone’s benefit and enjoyment.
What is a Land Trust?
A land trust is a private non-profit organization whose purpose is to conserve land in perpetuity. It enhances the character of the community by providing open green space for recreation, education, the protection of water and air quality, wildlife habitat, and agriculture.
Land trusts ensure lasting stewardship of conserved lands and waters by working with government to create long-term plans looking out over several generations. Land trusts connect the planning process to the public through membership in the organization. There are more than 1,200 land trusts across the U.S., ranging from all volunteer community-based organizations to large staffed land conservation non-profits with statewide or national territories.
Why Does Winter Park Need a Land Trust?
The 2015 – 2016 Winter Park Visioning Process revealed that expanding and connecting urban parks and green space is one of Winter Park citizens’ most important community values.
A community land trust plays an important role providing additional local open space, and it can supplement the ability of city government to provide and maintain green space.
Land trusts in the United States are long-lived, because they are able to transcend the everyday operational responsibilities and the changes in personnel faced by local governments. They exist solely to support a permanent framework of parks and green space in cities and towns.
Vision and Mission Driven
“The mission of the Winter Park Land Trust is to plan, finance and manage the acquisition of land and interests in land to be used for the creation, expansion, improvement, and connecting of parkland and green space within and adjacent to the City of Winter Park.
Our vision is that the Land Trust will help to ensure that Winter Park and surrounding communities will be an area with sufficient parks and open space, where the footprint of existing parks will be increased, and wherever possible, parks and green spaces will be connected in order to balance and reduce the adverse impacts of increasing development and population density. Attractive green space will then always be an important asset and characteristic of the Winter Park area.”
To learn more, go to www.winterparklandtrust.org
Become a Member
By joining The Winter Park Land Trust, you can help with the process of permanent land acquisition for urban parks and greenspace in Winter Park. You can become a member now by going to the website address above – and come to the kickoff party to learn all about it!
The Winter Park Land Trust is supported through private, tax-deductible contributions. Your contribution is an effective way of acting upon your belief in creating a lasting legacy to secure the quality of life in Winter Park.
I would support it if the City Commission deed restricts all of its existing green space first, so nothing can ever be built on them.
Otherwise it’s too tempting for Commissioners to say that green space is the Land Trust’s job, and then Commissioners go paving over our parks for development.
Land Trust also makes it tempting for Commissioners to fail to budget for green space like they should.
Here’s an idea:
The Land Trust could start a partner PAC, to force ballot initiatives for deed restrictions and City budget funding for green space.
That way, Land Trust donors would know that it is truly more green space that the Land Trust wants, and not merely privately funded green space to replace pilfered public green space.
And the City Commission would know, both now and in the future, that the Land Trust is never going to give them a convenient alibi for their park development escapades.
You make it too complicated, vote Todd Weaver
Very good thinking by whoever crafted this thought. I totally agree.
I will definitely support deed restrictions to ensure our parks are protected in perpetuity for future generations.
I also strongly support the Winter Park Land Trust and encourage all to do the same.