11/04/1996 Park Board Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY GOAL#2 TO EXPAND AND ENHANCE THE CITY'S ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT Parks/Recreation/Forestry can help enhance economic and industrial development by creating the attraction of and the perception of"Community". Programmed recreation opportunities,that residents and business employees can participate in holistically, can help create this attraction. Structured recreation programs as well as unstructured, individual opportunity and convenient access to greenway, open space and trails and integrated with a vast natural resource can create a healthy perception of a place to establish business. The Forestry Division can help with the natural resource issues in conjunction with other departments to provide for the paradigm of it is good to do business in a city that is environmentally friendly. Design standards, project review in conjunction with the community service officer, and street tree plantings that have added to the sense of neighborhood and community. Hopefully,these are enticing and attractive features that might attract business i.e. a community that cares. By marketing the relationship between leisure, recreation, as complementary to the central focus in life work, and that the City of Lino Lakes will support these intrinsic needs, I believe we can create a very effective instrument for business attraction. Economic development literature repeatedly stresses the attraction of local quality of life in the decision to move a firm to a new city. Parks and recreation services are primary considerations and measures in such a move. Quality of life for employees was the third most important factor in locating a business, according to an annual survey of chief executive officers conducted by Cushman and Wakefield in 1989. The Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress reported that a city's quality of life is more important than purely business-related factors when it comes to attracting new business.