Cleary Lake Regional Park Long-Range Plan
Cleary Lake Regional Park is the most visited regional park in Scott County and is a valued asset in the community. To ensure the park and its offerings remain relevant to future generations and the broader changing community, and compliant with the Metropolitan Council’s long-range plan and funding requirements, staff commenced a long-range planning process in 2020.
The intent of the Cleary Lake Regional Park Long-Range Plan is to provide an update to the vision of the park for the next 20 years. The previous long-range plan was completed in 1998 and many of the proposed improvements have been implemented since that time. The park will remain an active, amenity-rich place for people to gather, recreate and enjoy access to nature in a suburban regional park setting.
Three Rivers Park District and Scott County will continue to operate the park in partnership to continue to leverage the benefits of two organizations providing their expertise and knowledge to best provide for the growing populations of Scott County and surrounding areas. Direction from both boards, the Scott County Comprehensive Plan, Three Rivers Park District System Plan, and extensive community involvement helped shape the vision for the park. The Scott County/Three Rivers Policy Committee, which consists of the chair and vice-chair of each board, met in May and consensus at that meeting was to move forward and publish the plan for public comment.
Community Engagement Process
The community engagement process was designed with input from Three Rivers staff and aimed to facilitate diverse opportunities for community feedback. When planning feedback opportunities, staff not only focused on capturing various perspectives about Cleary Lake Regional Park, but also encouraged dialogue and comments on challenges facing communities in and around Scott County relating to parks and open space use. Though engagement coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, staff worked to create both virtual and in-person feedback opportunities consistent with health and safety guidelines at the time. Public engagement efforts were developed with intentional inclusion of traditionally underserved populations and stakeholders. This included engagement focused on communities of different race, ethnicity, national origin, income, ability, age, and other pertinent characteristics.
Plan Highlights
Cleary Lake Regional Park’s development concept is the culmination of over a year of community engagement, feedback from leadership, and analysis by Scott County and Three Rivers staff. The plan reflects the community’s priorities as well as addresses the limitations of the park to sustain the growth that is anticipated in the region. Highlights of the plan include increased trail capacity, expanded day use facilities, improved infrastructure to help with program delivery, and improved and expanded camping facilities. The plan also calls for continuing natural resource management and investment at its current level.
Public Comment Period
At its August 15, 2024, meeting, the Three Rivers Park District Board of Commissioners authorized the release of the draft long-range plan to the public for review and comment. The public comment period will remain open through September 19, 2024. To comment on the plan, submit comments in the box below, email them to Alyssa.Olson@ThreeRiversParks.org or mail them to Three Rivers Park District, Cleary Lake Regional Park Long-Range Plan, 3000 Xenium Lane North, Plymouth, MN 55441.
Following the review period, and assuming no significant changes, the plan will be forwarded to governmental partners, including the Metropolitan Council, for approval. Upon approval from all partners, the Three Rivers Board of Commissioners will be asked to grant final approval to the plan.
Great place for party's and family gatherings.
The walking path is great. I wish it wasn’t so crowded with fast moving wheels. Is there a way to accommodate all of us with more space?
Please do not make too many changes. Do not add pickle ball courts or anything for which reservations are needed. I would not allow large RV's or MORE RV's if they are already allowed. The park is beautiful the way it is and more attractions will increase traffic and possibly cause parking problems. Improvement of playground equipment would be helpful. I do agree with making the trail around the lake divided for bikes and walkers, i.e. each should stay on one side of the trail. I would like a couple of dog drinking fountains around the lake if possible. Thank you.
I wish that some of the trails around Cleary could be used for horses!
Tennis courts are needed. Prior Lake has only 2 public courts often used by pickleball players. 6 courts at Cleary would be great.
-An expanded play area (like French Regional)
-A single track with bike playground (like Carver Lake Park in Woodbury)
-Play areas pit-stops around the lake (like Rice Lake park in PL).
Leave it as a 9-hole golf course. Consider adding trail links to the existing trail system outside of the park. Any new additions or upgrades need maintenance & replacement dollars..so plan well. Make sure you balance environmental needs and human wants.
Multi-use trails (bikers & walkers) as an example can and are problematic if the trail is not wide enough to safely handle/accommodate both. Consider trail widening/separations.
My wife and I walk there frequently. I find that I often voice “Slow Down” to bikers. Common path is too narrow for a bike race track and family walking path.
With the park being used so much trail crowding is one of my main concerns. Walkers, bicycles, rollerbladers, strollers, etc.... All sharing the same space. The pandemic seems to have made the park super busy on nice days, so having a trail for walking vs bicycle, etc......Also golf seems to be less popular than it was 5 years ago, so maybe study that to see if the golf course is still worth it's upkeep. On the other hand, it's nice to have a relatively inexpensive place to golf. Many of the nearby courses are on the spendy side.
I'm afraid I can't offer any opinion because I've never been to the park myself
Would love to see more bike-only paths, particularly unpaved for mountain/trail bike riders. Perfection would be a single-track mountain-bike trail.
Nice park. I rollerblade and skate ski there. I didn't see anything on the interactive map showing future developments that I could comment on; at least on my phone.
I think the park is great. I would appreciate a larger dog park, the one we have is terrific but after years of using it an expanded area of woods would be lovely. Thank you.
There is McColl Pond ELC in Savage and the children do many environmental activities through school, however, I feel like there are not as many event options to do as a family in Scott County as other Three Rivers parks. I don’t know how much use the golf course gets as compared to past years. I have seen an article about kick golf becoming a ledger pastime (like golf and soccer combined). I also enjoy disk golf, but am unaware of many courses in Scott county.
I am worried a lot about the natural areas around Prior Lake getting developed, not just old farmland, but privately owned forested areas getting bulldozed. I was informed at a Blandings Turtle talk that Three Rivers was not concerned about the turtles in Murphy Hanrehan. With the fast development of the land, I wonder if this should be reconsidered. I worry about the animals crossing roads, I have been tracking Roadkill in iNaturalist and there have been many killed in specific areas in our community, including the north side of Cleary Lake Park along Eagle Creek.
I know that a lot of long time community members complain about the quality of Cleary Lake itself. I know my family would rather go to different beaches than Cleary Lake. If the lake condition is not caused by human problems (it is supposed to be like this) then I would not recommend doing anything that harms the water ecosystem.
We have lived in Prior Lake for more than 45 years and have enjoyed this Park and it's facilities. Besides the hiking trails, golf course, and park areas that we have used since moving her we also snowmobile. We see the current snowmobile trail on the Master plan but cannot find any mention of it in the new master plan verbiage. This trail is the only snowmobile route available to travel to and from Prior Lake to the Savage and Lakeville areas. Our trails organization and Three Rivers Parks have a very great working relationship and we really hope that it will continue, and that snowmobiling will always be a part of this Park.
I heard that the Snowmobile trail has been there in Cleary Lake for over 50 years and is Vital link in the trail system. I didn't see anything mentioned about this trail anywhere but does show up on the map. The Scott County 2040 Master Plan states snowmobiling will likely remain strong through 2040 and in 2017 there were 3875 registered snowmobiles in Scott County and 4256 to people who identified as riding primarily in Scott County. Thank You
There are a lot of good suggestions, I would like to see the snowmobile trails that already exist through Cleary Lake Park remain part of the parks trail system. Prior Lake is a "snowmobile friendly community" and that trail is a vital corridor to the trail system in this area.
It's just a wider non-paved path that gets a little more use during the winter time. I'm not sure if it is or not part of the non-paved system going through the park already, but I think it could be integrated with that system in some manner.
Thanks for letting us give some feedback on concerns about the park!
I’m disabled and I would also like a separate bike path. The pavement is smooth and easy to push/ride on path. It’s my favorite park.
There are many excellent suggestions. I love hiking the non-paved paths. Please keep them just how they are! It would be great if there could be some preventative measures taken regarding the geese on the beach. Swimming and walking in goose poop clay is less than ideal. Also, a better playground would be fantastic. Thank you for your consideration from the people that love Cleary!
Nordic trail snowmaking would be great. It seems the cross country ski community has outgrown Hyland.