Why This Measure Matters

For many years, Olympia has prioritized the acquisition of park land over the development of park spaces. This graph shows this relationship and trend over time.

What’s the Story?

• In 2025, 1,224 acres of Olympia’s park system are categorized as developed, which equates to 82.8% of the system being developed and under a quarter (17.2%) of the park system is undeveloped.
• An undeveloped park is defined as a neighborhood park, community park, or open space park for which a park development plan has not been fully implemented. A park can be in stages of development depending on total planned amenities (25%, 50%, 75% and finally to 100% fully developed). Sometimes a park can take many years to reach full development.  
• As the population grows, the acquisition of new park land will always remain important; however, residents also have recreation needs that are unmet in the current park system. 
• In past years OPARD focused much of its funding on acquisition of new park land rather than development of existing park land but 2025 continues to show a shift toward development. 
• OPARD is working to develop more acres of the park system so that parks are more usable for the community for active and passive recreation purposes.

Target

Tracking only; target has not been identified.

Reporting frequency