Page 110 - Rural Tourism Report Washington County

CHAPTER 5: ASSESSMENT OF IMPACTS

Table 5.2: Case Study Activities
Case Study Activity Activity Category
Adventure Courses Recreation
Childrens Play Areas Ancillary Activity
Concert Concert
Corn Maze/Pumpkin
patch Direct sales and marketing of farm crops
Disc Golf Recreation
Major Participant Event 77 Recreation
Retail (farm store) Direct sales and marketing of farm crops
Team Building Corporate Event
U-Pick operation Direct sales and marketing of farm crops
Weddings Celebratory Gatherings (including weddings )
Wine Club Events Direct sales and marketing of farm crops
Tastings at Winery Direct sales and marketing of farm crops
without vineyard

The case study research highlighted that the type • Hours of Operation: Late evening operation
of activity does not inherently result in significant (primarily associated with some weddings,
impacts, but that the characteristics of individual concerts, farm dinners, movies, barn dances,
activities and those of the site are more apt to and fall festivals) tend to increase the likelihood
create impacts. of impacts (typically noise) on neighboring land
uses. Those activities limited to daytime hours
These characteristics include: tend to avoid noise conflicts. Traffic impacts
• Size of Activity or Event: Whether a wedding, can be worse for weekday activities when
concert, or u-pick operation, the number of commuters generate high levels of traffic or
patrons will greatly influence the potential for during the day on weekends when commercial
impacts including noise, traffic congestion, activities generate traffic congestion.
and public safety concerns. • Frequency of Occurrence: How often events

• Access Roads: A site’s proximity to major occur can determine the level of impacts.
roads will dictate the degree to which large Frequent operation of larger events can
events may impact traffic congestion. If increase the odds of aggregating impacts with
traffic can queue up well off major roadways, those of neighboring operations and can also
impacts to neighboring land owners reliant surpass neighbors’ threshold of tolerance (i.e.

on these roadways can be minimized. a major event once a year may be tolerated
while repeated moderately sized events may
not).

77 Major participant events include large athletic events (typically with more than 500 participants), as opposed to spectator events. Case study activity was a large
mud run

106 WASHINGTON COUNTY RURAL TOURISM STUDY