Activity & Facility Use Policy

Ensuring equitable access and rental priority of user groups in Parks and Recreation

Context: This document hadn't been updated in about 15 years, and questions from user groups kept coming up. A new community center opening to the public necessitated updating this policy so that communication could be sent out to user groups wanting to rent spaces, internal city departments (outside of parks and recreation) asking how they could rent space for their own meetings, etc.

Go deeper: Outlines a specific set of priorities for the reservation and use of city facilities and recreational activities. It focuses on prioritizing residents (via zip code), setting equitable fees, and ensuring proper conduct and use of facilities, aiming to balance community needs with operational efficiency. Useful for departments who are having difficulty setting clear procedures for who is prioritized for limited use of facilities that are in demand.

The other priority that we set out to accomplish was to align our activity fees to increase with Consumer Price Index (CPI), in order to hit our Cost of Service policy thresholds and recapture our direct costs.

This policy was developed by staff and then brought to the Parks, Trails, and Recreation Commission to garner their feedback. The document was then revised and presented to city council before being adopted in Nov. 2023.

The big picture: Take a look at the updated Park User Fees that accompanied this document as it eventually was approved by city council. Read the resolution language, that describes the policy in how Redmond will increase activity fees on an annual basis.