Roanoke City Councilman Rupert Cutler announced Monday that the city has increased its park land by 14 percent since 2005, largely by transferring undeveloped land into the parks system, including the site where Victory Stadium once stood.

Cutler, whose career has long been focused on the environment, said that since the council rewrote the city code four years ago, Roanoke has added 254 acres of park land.

The addition of the new park land, Cutler said, demonstrates the city's "commitment to the future of park lands and open space in our beautiful valley, and its understanding of what makes Roanoke a great place to live."

The acreage included:

• Fifty-seven acres on Mill Mountain. The land was included in the original grant to the city from J.B. Fishburn, but adding it to the park system, Cutler said, "creates the potential for new uses."
• Twenty-four acres along the Lick Run Greenway.
• Thirty-five acres on Reserve Avenue. That includes the former Victory Stadium site and the National Guard armory. The Victory Stadium site is now predominately being used for recreational ballfields.
• Eighteen acres that have been set aside for a future greenway in Garden City.

The new acreage also includes the expansion of the Roanoke River Greenway, which was obtained in conjunction with a federal flood-reduction project.

Not included is Countryside Golf Course, which the city purchased for $4.1 million in 2005. The city issued a request for proposals to operate the course and received three responses, which the council is still mulling over.

"It could be a municipal golf course. It could be a city park, but that decision has not been made," Cutler said.

He declined to elaborate on his own stance on the issue.

The shift of the lands to the city park system doesn't necessarily mean they'll be left undeveloped. The 2005 change allows for the building of "facilities": That definition left the door open for a proposal a couple of years ago to build a restaurant on Mill Mountain, which Cutler supported. The proposal appears to have fallen by the wayside.

City Manager Darlene Burcham said that placing land in the city park system doesn't rule out the construction of amenities to provide a "wholesome experience" for park users.

"I don't think that anyone should take the announcement of park land to suggest that there would not be appropriate amenities throughout our park system, whether that be restrooms, snack bars, restaurants," Burcham said.

Cutler's announcement comes as the city is working to expand its greenway system. It received $1.4 million in federal stimulus money to build a bridge and trail extension to connect the Roanoke River Greenway and Tinker Creek Greenway.

It's also working to fill a gap in the Roanoke River Greenway by the intersection of Hamilton Terrace near Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

The council is also scheduled later this month to consider granting a 5,178-acre conservation easement at the Carvins Cove Natural Reserve. As with the park land, Burcham noted the easement won't entirely prohibit small-scale development of amenities on the land.

Last spring, the council granted an easement protecting a separate 6,185 acres at the reserve.

Cutler said during his speech Monday that once the easement at Carvins Cove is completed, he'd like to start work on another to protect portions of Mill Mountain.