The Regional Parks and Trails System is primarily nature-based and focuses on protecting and restoring high-quality natural areas for regional recreation opportunities. The protection, restoration, and enhancement of these natural systems is a foundational objective for the Regional Parks and Trails System. The Met Council collaborates with regional park implementing agencies to strategically locate and acquire lands with high-quality natural features or potential for restoration to create an interconnected regional recreation system. More details of the criteria used to identify lands for incorporation into the regional system can be found in the Regional Parks and Trails Planning Handbook.

Desired outcomes in natural systems protection:

• Protection of lands across the region that have been identified as having high-quality natural features, restoration potential or recreational opportunities
• Improved access to the Regional Parks and Trails System for all communities
• Greater collaboration between implementing agencies to carry out restoration work and maintenance of restored lands
• More robust data that can be used to develop acquisition and development strategies.

Future Met Council designation of lands for the Regional Parks and Trails System should emphasize important natural systems, access to water bodies, and natural resource features that enhance outdoor recreation. Water is a major attraction in almost every park within the Regional Parks and Trails System and a feature along many regional trails. Most surface water is publicly held, with the waterbeds owned by the state, so it is a critical function of the Regional Parks and Trails System to provide this access.

Acquiring lands that protect and restore natural features, help protect or improve water quality, provide wildlife habitat, and/or offer opportunities for outdoor recreation.

Past acquisition activity has tended to favor lands with high-quality natural systems over even geographic distribution. As the Regional Parks and Trails System matures, and available land with high-quality natural resources becomes scarcer, acquisition of lands with restoration potential have increased in importance. For example, lands with restoration potential include agricultural lands that were formerly prairie and naturalizing channelized streams.

The restoration of urban areas that include natural resource features (for example, Above the Falls Regional Park and Bruce Vento Regional Trail) have provided opportunities to create regional parks and trails in urban areas that have been home to a range of uses, including cultural and industrial ones.

All privately-owned parcels within a Council-approved long-range plan boundary are “in-holdings” until they are acquired. Whenever possible, the regional park implementing agencies will pursue the acquisition of these “in-holdings” on a willing-seller basis. Additional details about the acquisition process are outlined in the Parks and Trails Planning Handbook.

Because of strong public attraction to water resources, acquisition of any additional public water frontage identified in a Council-approved long-range plan should be given a high priority. The high demand and rapidly escalating value of water frontage will only make these lands costlier in the future. Trying to convert land with water frontage to public use after it has been developed is difficult and expensive.

Ensuring regional park and trail facilities are evenly distributed around the metropolitan area or distributed in proportion to the existing and forecasted population growth and development.

As the region continues to grow, it is important to regularly assess whether the residents of the region are being adequately served by the Regional Parks and Trails System. As such, it is important to strategically locate and acquire park and trail lands that are regionally significant. Regional significance means that the unit offers a natural setting, is significant in size, and serves multiple communities. Additionally, it provides regional recreational opportunities that are currently lacking in these areas. Geographic distribution helps the Council prioritize where new additions to the system would be most beneficial and it ensures that regional parks and trails are well distributed spatially, in proportion to population growth, development, and in recreational offerings available.

The ability to strengthen equitable use of regional parks and trails by all our region’s residents, such as across age, race, ethnicity, income, national origin, and ability.

With the objective of fostering equity and belonging in the Regional Parks and Trails System, it is important to consider service gaps across the region. The Council is committed to identifying areas that are not well served by using a variety of resources and factors such as understanding of where underrepresented communities have historically lived, available recreational opportunities, and distance to regional parks and trails.

Both qualitative and quantitative data-informed strategies are important to the Regional Parks and Trails System as it ensures that the investments into the system are effective, efficient, and desired by local communities and implementing agencies. The Council will play a lead role convening conversations among regional park implementing agencies, providing data and research, and inviting in interested parties. The Council will need the assistance of implementing agencies to understand local context and issues. The Council will explore funding opportunities to help support these efforts.

In addition to the research areas identified in Section Two, Action 2, the Council plans to further research on the following topics:

Tree canopy: The Council aims to continue the success of the “Growing Shade” tool and use tree canopy data to inform which parts of the Regional Parks and Trails System need additional vegetation.

Regionally significant ecological areas: Work on updating the regionally significant ecological areas and use data to identify areas that need protection.

Water monitoring: Collaborate with Met Council’s Environmental Services division to pilot a water monitoring project on lakes within regional parks.

While the Council does not own or operate any land within the Regional Parks and Trails System, the Council has the ability to convene the ten regional park implementing agencies and coordinate efforts around protection and restoration work. The Council will collaborate with the implementing agencies to both expand and protect natural areas while enhancing lands already in the system, to deliver a wide range of desired outcomes, including:

Find additional funding sources: Identify additional sources of funding for acquisition and maintenance. For more information, please see Section Eight: Finance, Action 5

Foster external partnerships: Partner with local organizations to advance the work of restoration, protection, enhancement, and education

Strengthen collaboration with existing partners: Continue to work with other state agencies and Council divisions to carry out protection and restoration efforts.