BATON ROUGE - A master plan to make significant changes to City-Brooks Park is in the works by BREC. The parks commission brought in design consultants, Sasaki Associates, to develop a blueprint for what improvements to City-Brooks Park could look like.

"We're trying to make sure we are providing the amenities for everybody in our community, not just for the golfers, but for other people who would like to use the park for their own personal preferences. We also have tennis there, we have swimming, we have shuffleboard," BREC Interim Superintendent Janet Simmons said.

Currently, Sasaki has proposed two designs for the park: one, "The Big Loop", suggests changes like improvements to the Brooks Pool, building a new Baton Rouge Gallery, and creating a 400-meter running track.

The other, "The Stitch," has some of the same changes but also includes additions like a two-way bike lane, but the proposed designs would trim the 2300-yard, nine-hole golf course into a 1900-yard course, which is not sitting well with some.

"I want the golf course to remain as is, it is a profitable golf course, there are people who are playing on it at all hours of the daytime, every day, it has a lot of rounds being played each day," Golfer Ken Pastorick said.

Pastorick says he'd like to see the money invested in improving the current golf course rather than changing it, which is what a plan brought forth by State Representative Dixon McMakin aims to do.

"We need that third option, that third option is the McMakin plan, priority number one, the Brooks Park of our side, getting a full track, updating the pool on that side is crucial for our community, and of course keeping the golf course whole, but making improvements to it, let's make it a great course and lets see how those rounds do," McMakin said.

But the golf course was not the main concern of every member of the community. For some, it's safer pathways for walking and jogging.

"Currently, the vast majority of paths around the park are either within about five feet of a busy road or nonexistent, forcing pedestrians to walk in the street and make dangerous crossings," one community member said.

The plans for City-Brooks Park are still in the early stages.

"This is not a construction project; this is just a master plan. We are not making any decisions tonight. We are just listening," Simmons said.