Trails, trails, trails.
Residents have an insatiable appetite for them, according to Avon Public Works Director Ryan Cannon and Parks, Recreation and Beautification Council President Charlotte Martin.
“Every time we do anything, everybody, all the input we always get is people want more trails,” Cannon said.
Avon has partly tried to meet the demand through collaboration. It worked with Brownsburg to develop the White Lick Creek Trail and the Bicentennial Trail, both of which connect the two towns.
Another strategy is expansion of the town’s parks system.
“We want to make sure we have things available in Avon, that we use some of the properties before they’re used up by shopping malls and subdivisions,” Martin said.
But acquiring land can be tricky.
According to Cannon, available land close to U.S. 36 is generally too expensive for the town. Land that’s farther away from the highway runs the risk of being too close to neighboring towns to make sense. It’s a struggle.
Improving quality of life helps the town meet two goals: serving the needs of its residents and drawing in new residents. The county shares these goals.
Jeremy Weber, parks superintendent for the county, said parks give people low-cost opportunities for healthy lifestyles that include social gatherings and physical activity.
“Our parks are nature parks,” he said. “We want to give people the opportunity to have that connection with nature and to learn from it. (We want) to help develop social capital and help, in our case, the county by being a driver of economic development.”
The demand for those kinds of opportunities is on the rise nationwide – a pattern that holds true in Hendricks County. In 2011, about 71,000 people visited county parks. In 2016, about 160,000 people had visited by the end of October.
“People want to live near parks,” Weber said. “They want to be able to walk to parks. Businesses that are looking to locate in an area look for access to parks as one of those quality of life indicators for employees.”
Originally published in Hendricks County ICON, 2017. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.