by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Mayor John Peyton used his office’s annual environmental luncheon Friday to highlight the City’s next step in converting its park system from the nation’s largest to the national best.
Peyton said he was carrying on a tradition of embracing the city’s natural surroundings set by his predecessor, former mayor John Delaney. In 1999, Delaney launched the $360 million Preservation Project. Over the next four years, the City spent $58 million to buy more than 60 square miles of future park land. Now it’s up to Peyton to develop more than 40,000 acres of untouched land into parks that compete with the best in the country.
“I want to be the mayor that carries on the tradition set by John Delaney that Jacksonville is a city that appreciates and cares for its natural assets,” said Peyton.
Peyton will spend $13.2 million over the next three years to develop the park land. State and federal funds make up about 60 percent of the budget. Leftover Preservation Project money will pay for the rest, Peyton said.
Peyton’s Parks Task Force will spend the next three months defining what a world-class park system looks like. Then the City will start building toward those goals.
Once finished, Peyton said the park system would provide Jacksonville with a competitive advantage in attracting businesses.
“In a knowledge-based economy people can work they want to, and companies want to work where people want to live,” said Peyton. “Protecting our natural assets is not only the right thing to do it’s the smart thing to do.”
Including the undeveloped land, Jacksonville has more than 82,000 total acres of public land. It has 337 active parks, most of them managed by partnerships among City, state and federal agencies.