Residents in downtown Los Angeles are leaping for joy because a brand new park is coming to the revitalized historic core.  Spring Street Park, which broke ground last October, will be the first public park in the neighborhood.  According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 15,000 residents moved into downtown between 2000 and 2010, without the addition of new public greenspace.  The city purchased the property from Council District 9 in 2009 with $5.1 million in Quimby funds.  California state law requires the dedication of land or in lieu fees for park or recreational purposes as a condition of new residential subdivision.  These fees are known as “Quimby fees.”  The 1965 Quimby Act authorizes the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks to spend Quimby funds within one to two miles of a new subdivision.

California is not the only state that uses developer impact fees to purchase or maintain parkland.  According to the Center for City Park Excellence, 36 of the main park and recreation agencies within the 100 most populous U.S. cities have some variation of a developer impact fee and received $55.5 million and over 200 acres of parkland in FY 2010.  Even more impressive, cities spent $64.5 million from their developer impact fee accounts in that same fiscal year (fees collected do not have to be spent in the same year received).  At the top of the list was the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks (spending $15.7 million), followed by the San Jose Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services ($9.1 million), Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department ($9 million), Riverside, CA Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department ($8.4 million), and Portland, OR Parks and Recreation ($4.5 million).

It is interesting to note that, due to the current economic situation, develop impact fees are actually a declining source of revenue.  In FY 2008, 28 of the major park and recreation agencies received $101.6 million and almost 600 acres of parkland.  Of the $101.6 million received from developer impact fees, $71.6 million was spent in that same fiscal year.

Developer exaction programs have been adopted by many communities to help offset a variety of costs associated with new development.  A sizable percentage of these localities, recognizing that public parks, trails, open space and recreational facilities are critical to ensuring residents’ health and quality of life, have specifically set fees and/or required land dedication for parks.

The majority of these ordinances apply only to residential plats or subdivisions that create additional dwelling units.  A few ordinances also apply fees to office construction, hotels, schools, churches, nursing homes and other types of commercial or even industrial development.

The formulas used to assess the fee or generate acreage vary; some are based on the number of new residents, others on the number of units, others on the square footage of construction.  In addition, the ordinances differ in allowing a developer to substitute land or facilities for paying a fee; in setting the size of the geographical “nexus” within which the funds or land can be applied; in permitting uses for the funds (i.e. land acquisition, facility development, maintenance and even administration); in being flexible as to the types of facilities for which funds can be used; and in setting a time limit within which the funds must be spent or committed.

There is no nationally agreed-upon standard for land (or dollar) donations by developers, and different city or state ordinances use substantially different formulas to determine the exactions. In some cases the ratio is based upon population, in others on dwelling units; some cities prefer outright land gifts while others prefer money with which to buy land.

For more information about the role of developer exactions in the creation of new city parks, read an article here.

Environmental concerns, however, tend to be overshadowed by the fears of community members who think that the darkness will encourage illegal or unsafe activities in parks.

Civic Space Park, Phoenix. By Michael Ruiz.

How can park managers and landscape architects use lighting to increase usability and safety without negatively impacting the environment?  Safer Parks After Dark: New night-lighting methods help provide answers for dark sky advocates, an article originally published in the November 2011 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, explores this multifaceted issue and finds that economically feasible solutions can be achieved using new technology and careful planning.

Mixing uses in parks has its challenges and requires good design, adequate signage, and clear rules. Trail use, for example, can create conflict between walkers, skaters, and fast cyclists. Many cities appropriately prohibit fast cycling on trails shared by pedestrians. On the other hand, hard pedaling and fast running provide more health benefit than casual spinning and jogging. Other than putting bikes on roadways, the only safe solution is to provide parallel treadways for fast and slow users—and to clearly mark the allowed uses by location or time of day. Then, too, the alternate trails need occasional enforcement.

Even if a park system offers varied spaces for physical activity, not everyone will know how to take advantage of them. Some users need to learn new skills, some need encouragement, some need an exercise regimen, some need social support. Even with all this, many require other assistance—partners, equipment, referees, timekeepers, music, safety paraphernalia, and more. In a word, programming. Good programming can increase park use many times over, make activity more enjoyable, and increase its benefits to health and fitness.

Credit: Phil Schermeister.

Traditional park  programming consists of league sports, exercise routines, children’s camps, and oldies-but-goodies such as ballroom dancing. More recent additions have been Jazzercise, tai kwon do, tai chi, rock climbing, and bicycle “roadeos.” But in response to changing technologies and new immigrant cultures, innovative ideas come along all the time. In Minneapolis, the park department offers open gym periods to play sepak takraw, a remarkable kick volleyball game brought to this country by Hmong immigrants from Cambodia. Raleigh, North Carolina, uses the reward of a free pedometer for diabetic children who sign up for special athletic programming that includes nutrition instruction. Seattle has launched monthly Women of the World swims at two pools at the request of Muslim women whose faith bars them from recreational activities with men. Women of all faiths are welcome, and the sessions are privately funded. Overseen by female lifeguards and held at pools without street-facing windows, the swims provide some women with exercise they otherwise would not get.

Of course, programming has a health impact only if people know about it, and that requires promotion and marketing through advertisements, program pamphlets, TV and radio public service announcements, flyers, email‚ and social networking services such as Twitter. Outreach is difficult in times of tight budgets, but creative park departments attempt to find private sector collaborators in fields such as health, media, banking, and public utilities to help them spread the word.

Finally, every new program and every new facility needs to be evaluated, particularly when dealing with health, since this approach is standard in the medical community. It is not enough to assume that an activity has a positive impact. The only real way to know is through monitoring and before-and-after measurement. Sometimes the research can be done by the park agency itself. But when this is prohibitively time-consuming or expensive, it may be possible to partner with a local university, college‚ or high school whose student researchers can observe usership and even measure such health indicators as body mass index, heart rate‚ or muscle strength.

Credit: Susan Lapides.

When it comes to programming, Cincinnati—the nation’s 56th-largest city—packs a wallop. On a per-capita basis, Cincinnati ranks in the U.S. top ten for its number of ball diamonds, recreation centers, swimming pools, tennis courts, basketball courts‚ and golf courses. More important for public health, the Cincinnati Recreation Commission’s programs attracted over 3.2 million participant-visits in 2009, some 691,000 of which were visits by youth. All this in a city of barely 330,000 residents—giving Cincinnati the highest per-capita recreation participation rate of all cities reporting information to The Trust for Public Land.

Among the hundreds of programs offered are youth and adult league sports ranging from soccer and basketball to track and field and kickball; senior programs such as golf, swimming, tennis‚ and the Senior Olympics; programs for the disabled, including wheelchair football and basketball; and such offerings for youth as afterschool programs, summer day camps, and bike outings. In addition to the formal programming, most of the recreation commission’s 29 recreation centers offer fitness centers and open gym hours. Residents can use the recreation centers and the city’s 26 pools for a yearly membership fee of $25, or $10 for seniors and youth.

The Cincinnati Park Board—a landowning and land management agency separate from the recreation commission—plays a part, too, by working to make Cincinnatians feel safer in their parks. In Burnet Woods, a place with a mixed reputation, the board thinned out invasive vegetation and installed a disc golf course through the forest. The sport, which is growing in popularity throughout the country, drew so many more people into Burnet Woods that the park became safer and more appealing even for visitors not there for the game.

Credit: Rich Reid.

Fitness zones are easy-to-use, accessible outdoor gyms designed to promote general  health within a park experience, creating a supportive social context for getting fit. Using only a gravity- and-resistance weight system, fitness zones require no electricity and employ their users’ body weight to engage different muscle groups. The exercise equipment is durable, vandal- and weather-resistant, and appropriate for people 13 years of age and older of all fitness levels.

Working under the leadership of The Trust for Public Land and with funding from health insurer Kaiser Permanente and the MetLife Foundation, the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department have installed 30 fitness zones across the region, including six in existing Los Angeles city parks.

Fitness zones are often placed in areas of high need, including communities with high rates of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Some are located adjacent to playgrounds to encourage adults to exercise while keeping an eye on children. Others are placed near administrative offices to reduce safety worries.

The El Cariso Regional Park in Sylmar is one example of a successful fitness zone. It includes nine pieces of easy-to-use outdoor gym equipment along with bilingual health and fitness information panels.

“The bottom line is that fitness zones attract new users to parks,” says Dr. Deborah Cohen, a researcher with the RAND Corporation who carried out an exhaustive before- and-after study of the facilities in 12 parks. “We also know that fitness zones are used throughout the day, that fitness zone users increase the amount they exercise, and that they use the parks more frequently than other park users.”

The untouched Santa Monica Mountains behind the famous H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D sign were saved in 2010 by a very public and successful Trust for Public Land campaign to prevent development on the 138 acres behind and beside the “H.”  Cahuenga Peak has been added to 4,100-acre Griffith Park.

The awards also recognized New York City as the “Greenest City,” particularly due to its ambitious master plan, called PlaNYC.

Named by the NDRC as a Smarter City for Transportation in 2011 and a Smarter City for Energy in 2010, New York City is following a plan, released by Mayor Bloomberg on Earth Day 2007, to reduce its carbon footprint – and its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% – and improve its environs by 2030. PlaNYC encompasses improvements in land, water, transportation, energy, air and climate change impacts. Notable accomplishments in the last year include making Times Square into a pedestrian-friendly causeway, planting thousands of trees and fighting to get hybrid taxis on the streets.  

Though perhaps overshadowed by PlaNYC, New York also recently released Vision 2020, a comprehensive plan to reshape its substantial waterfront. It may come as a surprise to many that New York’s waterfront, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the sixth borough, is larger than that of Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Portland combined. Recognizing that the task of reshaping 520 miles of shoreline may seem incomprehensibly large, New York’s planning department also released the Waterfront Action Agenda, which outlines 130 specific projects to be started in the next three years.

That report was preceded by a manual produced by the Design Trust for Public Space called “High Performance Landscape Guidelines: 21st Century Parks for NYC.” It contains best practices for park design and plant selection, guidelines for implementing the goals of PlaNYC, and suggestions on how parks can better promote cycling and walking.

Both of these high-profile cities, though in opposite corners of the country, share a commitment to improving livability through the development, protection, and rejuvenation of parks. We offer our congratulations for their newest green credentials.

The Hollywood sign draped to read SAVE THE PEAK from Gower Avenue in Los Angeles. Credit: Rich Reid

The famous Hollywood sign has stood for decades in regal solitude on Cahuenga Peak, gazing out over Los Angeles. When the land surrounding the “H” was threatened by a luxury housing development in 2009, The Trust for Public Land stepped forward to lead the effort to purchase the 138 acres surrounding the iconic letters.

The year-long campaign, which culminated in April 2010, involved thousands of donors – including some high-profile figures like Hugh Hefner and Governor Schwarzenegger, who announced “I am proud we were able to come together and create a public-private partnership to protect this historic symbol that will continue to welcome dreamers, artists and Austrian bodybuilders for generations to come.” The land is not just a pretty backdrop for the sign that beckons aspiring stars; it is a popular hiking area and wildlife corridor.

Now the 138-acre addition to Griffith Park has been nominated for The Daily Green’s 2011 Heart of Green Award in the Best New Parks category. Go here to vote, and take a moment to check out some of the other urban parks success stories from the past year. While there, feel free to vote for your favorite Best New Trail as well.

Voting is ongoing through March 27^th, and winners will be announced on April 4^th.

February’s selections highlight the importance of recreation in urban areas.

One of the primary functions of urban parks is to provide places for recreation.  The types of recreational opportunities can be influenced by park size, neighborhood demographics and demand, community design culture, and, of course, funding.  We typically think of city parks as places developed with ballfields ,sport courts, playgrounds, and swimming or spray pools.  Larger parks may have recreation centers or field houses.  But there is a different sort of urban park, too.  Across the country, cities are preserving and re-establishing natural areas and developing nature-based recreational experiences within their borders.  These parks feature trails, restored habitats, and environmental centers.  And though it seems that these types of parks would have nothing in common, this month’s featured parks share something quite significant: park partnerships that deliver results.

New York City is the most urbanized place in the United States.  And yet, in the middle of Staten Island, there beats a green heart of forests, meadows, streams, trails, and parks.  The 2800-acre ribbon of natural beauty, the Greenbelt, provides many nature-based recreational opportunities such as hiking, bird-watching, and environmental education programs.  New Yorkers can enter this place of respite through one of the many public access points along the length of the greenway. This valuable gem is protected through a partnership between the Greenbelt Conservancy and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.  Click here to read more.

Fifty years ago, on the site of what is now Gilbert Lindsay Park in Los Angeles, stood Wrigley Field, a ballpark hosting minor league teams in the Los Angeles area.  Today, instead of baseball, the park hosts family gatherings and activities at one of its many recreational facilities, such as the synthetic soccer field donated by Nike, the new recreation center, or the inclusive Boundless Playground.  Thanks to the many partners and donors who stepped forward to convert this park from neighborhood eyesore to a thriving center of community, neighborhood residents now have a safe place to play.  Site furnishings in the park were manufactured by DuMor, Inc.  Read more

Frontline Parks is generously supported by DuMor, Inc. and  PlayCore.

The article touches on how they could be of some help in addressing obesity:

“We’ve placed (the fitness zones) in places of high need where we have a big population of residents who are obese and who have diabetes and hypertension,” [Pascaline] Derrick said.

The Trust for Public Land’s consideration of South Los Angeles proves a great resource for the area, said Perry.

“We are battling disproportionate statistics on obesity,” Perry said. “But this is an opportunity for South L.A. to address these issues in an upbeat and positive way and as a family.”

And an affordable one in low-income areas. A gym membership can run from $30 per month on the very low end to normally $60 or more. Many people either cannot afford or are not willing to pay for one, so creating public facilities that address these needs can be key to rising residents’ level of physical activity.

In economic terms, assuming access to exercise facilities runs at about $4 per use, that’s $400 in daily benefits for every 100 people.

More on Fitness Zones, and a video from the story below:

Draping the Hollywood sign. S-A-V-E......

If Paris has the Eifel Tower and New York the Statue of Liberty, then LA has the Hollywood sign.  Earlier this week, TPL announced that the view of the world-famous Hollywood Sign will be protected by purchasing Cahuenga Peak, the 138 acres behind and to the left of the sign which could have been developed into luxury homes.

The peak was originally owned by  Howard Hughes to house the home of his then-lover Ginger Rogers, the actress and dancer — but Rogers soured and many years later the land was purchased by a Chicago developer from the Hughes estate.

With an exclusive option to buy until April 14, TPL, with the support of donors such as The Tiffany & Co. Foundation and others are in a campaign to raise a total of $12.5 million by April 14.  If the money is raised, the land will be conveyed to the city of LA and made part of the city’s iconic Griffith Park.

The park already is one of the largest in a big U.S. city and the fourth most visited city park in the country. Jon Kirk Mukri, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, said, “Griffith Park is an urban oasis with recreational opportunities that make the park such a glorious part of Los Angeles. There are many things to do, see, enjoy, and appreciate in this expansive area, with more than 4,200 acres. The Hollywood Sign, perhaps the most recognizable nine letters to grace a hillside in the world, is part of Griffith Park and it is important that the view of the sign as well as the spectacular views and trails of Cahuenga Peak be preserved.”

And today, the letters of the famous sign are being a covered with a “save the peak” facade. Here’s a story on the effort from the New York Times.

The budget crisis is forcing us to rethink our lifestyle. This isn’t our first economic downturn, though, and Americans have consistently come to the conclusion that public recreation and parks are even more important when times are bad. At the dawn of the 20th century, concerned citizens and churches used recreation to soften the harsh urban realities of child labor, crowded tenement houses and crime. In Chicago, Jane Adams organized Hull House to socialize and celebrate European immigrants. The YMCA, YWCA, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the playground movement were founded during this period. During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt put people to work building WPA projects, including many of Los Angeles’ great public parks. The thinking was that public recreation was necessary to humanize the excesses of capitalism. Today, instead of cutting programs and increasing fees, city and county officials should develop more effective ways to provide services, especially in low-income communities. Under a growing trend of “smart recreation,” activities are designed to achieve social goals…….A hallmark of this new approach is partnership with private sector and nonprofit groups.

Easier said than done, but Foley goes on to describe some of the initiatives his group is undertaking in partnership with private foundations, organizations and local government that can acheive the above goals.