The Clinton County Cooperative Extension Service continues to facilitate initiatives focused on improving the built environment by increasing opportunities for physical activity and access to healthy foods. Through partnership with city and county government, Extension staff pursued greenspace conceptual planning technical assistance to further our collective work in this area.

Through a grant from the KY Division of Forestry, the Virginia Tech Community Design Assistance Center offered planning services in the amount of $12,535 to develop a conceptual trail linkage plan for Albany. The opportunity took the concepts from Mark Fenton’s walkability assessments and pedestrian planning visits (courtesy of the CDC Obesity Prevention Grant) and extended them into visual next steps for future grant applications. The team conducted two site visits to assess the area and presented renderings at community forums held in August and September. Approximately 30 community members were involved in site visits and community forums.

The professional sketches and detailed plans the Center provided are far beyond what anyone in our community could develop. Sketches included wayfinding signage, traffic calming measures, trail development, sidewalk extensions, and the new downtown farmers market structure. There is excitement among leaders and community members about the plans and how equipped we are to move forward in pursuing additional resources for implementation.