The Bend Park and Recreation District (BPRD) owns and manages park property that encompass eight miles of Bend’s riverfront. This is nearly all of the riverfront accessible to the public within Bend. To best manage the increased recreational river use and improve the experience for all users at these parks, BPRD embarked on a two-year planning process to create the Deschutes River Access & Habitat Restoration Plan (River Plan). The River Plan identified a total of 28 projects, some of which have already been completed by staff, but these will be the first three projects to begin a full development process. They are: McKay Park (project #20), Miller’s Landing Park (project #21), and Columbia Park (project #22).

These three individual projects, which include four river access points, have been combined into this single, larger project: the McKay, Miller's Landing, and Columbia Park's River Access Project (Project). These locations are home to some of the few areas in downtown Bend where river access can be provided to calm sections, which are conducive to a multitude of uses. BPRD’s 2018 Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan) identifies “areas to access the river” as a high community need. Improved access at these three parks for a site-specific appropriate combination of water craft launching, wading, swimming, and hanging out by the river would go a long way in addressing that need.