PITTSFIELD, Mass.— The city's Open Space and Recreation Plan is due for an update to guide the next five years.

Parks, Open Space, and Natural Resources Manager James McGrath and Seth Jenkins, senior planner at the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, have worked on the effort over the past year so that the city remains eligible for state grant funding. The last approved plan ran from 2019 to 2024.

"We want to make certain that our strategies are attainable and that we have a clear path of funding to get them implemented," McGrath told the Parks Commission on last week.

"Because there's nothing worse than sort of creating this excitement over something and then not having the resources to implement or not having the funding."

Open space and recreation plans are a tool communities use to plan for conservation and recreation needs and are reviewed by the Division of Conservation Services. Open spaces go beyond city parks, as preserves and land trusts, waterbodies, farms, forests, and more fall under that category.

A survey garnered nearly 300 responses last summer and results were presented during a public forum in October.  At the meeting last year, the most popular words attendees used to describe Pittsfield parks were "clean" and "beautiful" and nearly 60 percent of survey respondents want to see bathroom improvements.

"We heard a lot from folks in terms of satisfaction with the city's parks but also maybe some desires to see," Jenkins said.

"Some bathroom improvements, some security and lighting improvements, maybe some additional programming but for the most part, people sounded like they were happy. So now we're looking at the old plan, the 2017 plan, to say, 'Where are we with these goals that were in that plan? Are some of them maybe no longer necessary? Are some of them requiring an update? Are some of them needing a complete revision?"