I've been following this thread but haven't chimed in yet. I wanted to talk to someone that works in State Parks. I contact Neil Lasley with Washington State Parks and asked him his impression of the discussion and how the state view parks.
Here is what he had to say. Good to hear from you! I can provide you with an explanation and some reference literature that points to WACs and RCWs to shed some more light on this. (RCW are state laws and WACs are administrative codes) In a nutshell though--tagging them as *protected areas* sounds like a good idea to me---I support it. I read Kevin Kenny’s reasoning behind wanting to do that, and like he said—while state parks may not be nature-protected areas across the board (some of them are highly developed and definitely aimed more towards public recreation opportunities, and some of them are protected for cultural/historic significance), they are all, in a sense, community-protected areas. The state’s definition of a state park is… *State Park: *Land generally greater than 10 acres in size, managed to protect and conserve significant scenic, natural and cultural features and to provide public access, facilities, or programs that through recreational, educational, and interpretive experiences connect visitors with those features. I’m probably getting out into the weeds here, but I think it’s worth mentioning that there are also *state park properties*… *State Park Properties:* Lands owned by the agency that are being held for future development (and lack any real infrastructure). A lot of mapping platforms (Google Maps) incorrectly label *State Park Properties* as full-blown *State Parks,* which confuses the public and is something we hear about often. (We’ve worked with Google several times to correct this, but they’re very slow to act). Regardless of how State Park Properties are labeled, I think tagging them as protected areas also makes sense. A couple of things jumped out at me. First that parks can have a number of uses from recreation to cultural giving possible different classifications to the park. Second, I am aware of the park holdings but had never added them to OSM. But that might be another classification. Best, Clifford -- @osm_washington www.snowandsnow.us OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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