Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part One | Defining Levels of Service for individual parks

 Gaps in park master planning frameworks

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part One | Levels of Service"

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Two | Utilizing Academic Research as Guidance"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Three | Planning for Climate Change/Environment"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Four | Planning for Seasonality and Activation"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning, Part Six | Art(s) in the Park(s) as a comprehensive program"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Seven | Park Architectural (and Landscape Design) History" 
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Eight | Civic Engagement"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Nine | Second stage planning for parks using the cultural landscape framework" 

But while I have written a bunch about parks and transportational access, I didn't think to include that as another topic in the series.  The challenge is to ensure that as many parks as possible are accessible by transit.  This, and other forms of accessibility, should be covered in a parks master plan.

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Ten | Park transportational access" (2025)

While covid kept me somewhat quiescent in terms of civic involvement in Salt Lake after first moving here, eventually I ended up getting involved in parks (and other development matters).  I am on the board of Sugar House Park, which is owned by both the city and county, so it has some interesting intergovernmental issues. 

Working on revitalization in DC, where the National Park Service runs many of the "local" parks, general federal-local government issues, and being on the board of Eastern Market public market for 13 years definitely prepared me for the issues present here.  

-- "Revisiting Trust for Public Land's Park Score® methodology" (2017)
-- "Federal shutdown as another example of why local jurisdictions should have more robust contingency and master planning processes" (2013)
-- "Testimony: Agency Performance Oversight, DC Department of Parks and Recreation" (2012) 

One problem with the board is that the city and county haven't invested in board development, and for the most part over the years, the board has taken a back seat to the executive branch members of the board--there are seven "lay members" and one each from city and county parks.

My background in planning, including parks planning, gives me/the board a knowledge base they didn't have access to before.  

-- "Sounds familiar to me: recommendations from a guy who visited every park in Boston" (2017): 

There is tension between being a more active or a more passive board.  Lack of investment in board development, and real complications in planning and capital budgeting between city and county have led to some problems.

Fortunately there are a couple of other "new members" who are super go getters too.  We have so much to do.  Without them though, I'd just be an old guy yelling into the wind.  But, like my brief planning job in Baltimore County proved I could do great work and work within a system--despite the lack of a degree in planning, I am helping to transform parks practice in Salt Lake City.

One thing that's interesting given how much I advocated for parks in DC and all the parks master plans I've read over the years, is identifying a number of gaps in the master plan frameworks for parks, more generally.  A bunch of items I just didn't think about until I had to.

This seven-part series covers the gaps I've identified so far.

Level of service as a public administration term

The term Level of Service is typically thought of as a transportation term referring to vehicle throughput, functioning of intersections, etc.  

It turns out that there is an International Standard (ISO 55000) for asset management, which defines levels of service as: 

…parameters, or combination of parameters, which reflect social, political, environmental and economic outcomes that the organization delivers.  These parameters might include metrics such as: 

• Safety 
• Customer expectations and satisfaction 
• Quality 
• Quantity 
• Capacity 
• Reliability 
• Responsiveness 
• Environmental acceptability 
• Availability 
• Cost

Levels of Service defined at the scale of a park system. LOS is a term used in park planning at the scale of the system ("Standards for Outdoor Recreational Areas," American Planning Association) and it's used to measure the amount of space and facilities available to residents at a gross-grained scale. 

Special levels of service demands for business districts and parks. LOS as a term isn't used that often at the micro scale in discussions about "parks conservancies" and business improvement districts, even though providing a LOS higher than a city can typically afford is exactly why such organizations have been created--and they collect special monies to pay for it.  

For either a BID or a conservancy extra services are likely to include security, sanitation, capital improvements and marketing and for BIDs, economic development activities.  

Conservancies and BIDs as special service districts. NYC is well known for its park conservancies, starting with Central Park.  

-- Public spaces/private money: The Triumphs and Pitfalls of Urban Park Conservancies, Trust for Public Land
-- "Creating a Park Conservancy that Fits," NRPA

Discussions for creating a conservancy for Central Park started in the 1970s and came to fruition in the early 1980s.  The city agreed to provide a certain level of personnel and budget, with transfer of active management of the park to the third party nonprofit, which raised additional monies for staff, maintenance and improvements.

New York City has since developed many such groups for parks and and business districts.  Brooklyn's Prospect Park Alliance was created in 1987 and the Madison Square Park Conservancy in 2003.

The Bryant Park Conservancy was created in 1980 and its revitalization is a well known story in planning circles ("Inside the transformation of Bryant Park," New York Daily News, "Splendor in the Grass," New York Times, Bryant Park case study, "Life of Bryant: Bryant Park’s Transformation Into the Center of Midtown" "Lessons from NYC’s Bryant Park must guide James Weldon Johnson Park’s redesign" Jaxson, "A Place Is Better Than a Plan: Revitalizing urban areas is best done through small improvements, not grand designs,:" City Journal, "Bryant Park, NY: Publicly Owned, Privately Managed, and Financially Self-Supporting" Project for Public Spaces)  and is a good model for other communities--although New York City has an advantage because of its great wealth-- because the park is smaller, only 10 acres,  compared to large scale parks like Central Park or Prospect Park.

Criticism of conservancies and BIDs as privatization of the public space and civic commons.  Note that these kinds of initiatives can be controversial both locally and in the academic literature.  These are legitimate criticisms.  At the same time if you want better places, it costs money and this method may be the only way a community can provide the LOS in terms of management, operations, and capital improvements it wants for its key/anchor/signature civic assets.

-- "Stewarding the City as Commons: Parks Conservancies and Community Land Trusts Community Land Trusts " City University of New York Law Review
-- Private Funding of Public Parks Assessing the Role of Philanthropy , Resources for the Future
-- "Our Parks Are Not for Sale: From the Gold Coast of New York to the Venice Biennale," Dissent
--" Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth: Challenges in Managing Philanthropic Support for Public Services," Public Administration Review
-- "Park (in)Equity," Deconstructing the High Line: Post Industrial Urbanism and the Rise of the Elevated Park

Sugar House Park is a conservancy.  Technically.  But it hasn't created the innfrastructure and capacity to take advantage of this status.  Plus, Salt Lake City, unlike NYC, isn't full of wealth, although there are plenty of philanthropic opportunities that the park can seek out.  

To my way of thinking, from the standpoint of Social Psychology of Organizations, the group is on the cusp of moving from a more ad hoc structure to one that is more organized and active.  (A move from a stage one organization to stage two.)

Uncleared sidewalks from 1300 East to Sugar House Park.

Levels of Service at the scale of an individual park is an issue with Sugar House Park. 

It's an urban park, a regional park serving all of the County, but it's also heavily used by city as well as neighborhood residents.  The neighborhood is pretty densely populated, leading to even higher use.

But the County, which is contracted to maintain the park, and provides key administrative and planning support, mostly doesn't manage parks in center cities, with all the issues that such park locations may have-- security, homelessness (Dealing With Crime and Disorder in Urban Parks, ASU POP Center) and other issues like snow clearance to maintain winter access that are not typical of suburban parks.

Finding the money to provide the necessary level of "extra service" is difficult because we have to get agreement from both the city and the county, and as park systems, because Sugar House Park is simultaneously part of both, and yet separate, not part of either system, this can be a long process.

At the scale of parks master planning, it's important to come up with a LOS typology for individual parks/parks at the micro scale, and provide the desired LOS as needed.

And that's what I'm in the process of trying to do with Sugar House Park.  

"Why is our meager budget earned from pavilion rentals paying for security?" or "why can't the City Public Utilities agency help pay for dredging the pond since it is part of their watershed?" or "why don't we have better snow clearance?" are the kinds of questions that I've been asking and should lead to significant changes over time.

Developing a LOS dashboard.  I don't manage the park.  The County is developing a dashboard for the park system and individual parks, focused on state of good repair.  To address the issue of differentiated level of service requirements, we need a checklist/chart/dashboard.  That's the best way to justify the recommendations, decisions and choices you make, based on demand for quantity and quality of particular services.  It would include items such as:

• Security services
• Restroom services
• Maintenance standards/State of Good Repair
• Ornamental plantings
• Lighting (morning, night, winter)
• Types of street furniture
• The array of programming offered
• The type and operation of facilities
• Special facilities like bike share stations
• Snow clearance practice
• Hours of operation

-- SF Park Evaluation Standards, 2022-

-- Safe and Managed Public Spaces Operations Dashboard, Boulder

-- Safe and Managed Public Spaces Action Plan 2023, Boulder

Community building #3: Dogs, social bridges, dog parks, and rescue adoptions

This morning while walking to the Metro, a lady was walking a dog.  It turns out she is a volunteer at the Washington Humane Society's shelter on Street, which is a few blocks away, and she was walking one of the dogs there that hasn't been adopted.

WHS has a big RV and they do adoption events at various places across the city, such as at the Big Bad Woof pet store in Takoma.

... but I suggested to the lady that they consider working with the burgeoning collection of dog parks across the city, and do events there, promoting the idea of dogs and dog walking as a neighborhood community building activity.

There are 11 dog parks in DC right now, and 2 sites with pending applications.

-- DC Department of Parks and Recreation Dog parks page

See "Dogs and the city" and "Dog parks and National Park Service installations" for discussions about dogs as "social bridges" or ways of getting neighbors to meet and become acquainted when they otherwise may not, as well as dog walking as an element of "eyes on the street."

Community building #2: Guardian Live Better Challenge

The Guardian Newspaper's Live Better Challenge is sponsored by Unilever, and based on some interesting research that the company did with UK households in working with them to foster more sustainable household behaviors and routines ("Inspiring sustainable behavior -- Unilever's interesting social research"), while saving money--in face of the belief that sustainability practices cost more, not less.



According to the website:

The Live Better Challenge is all about coming together to make a difference to our lives, and the world around us, through positive action. We will also be issuing seven challenges to you, each focused on an issue around how we live our lives: food waste, health, sustainable living and more. Each challenge is only for one week – any week that suits you – with different challenges each month.

Last week's challenge was "getting involved" in your community and the site featured stories about 17 different projects around the UK. Members of the challenge got to vote on their favorites, and the winners will receive small grants. The winners will be announced today.

This is the garden in the Battersea district of London, created by participants in the project numbered #16 listed below.  Guardian photo by David Levene.

All of the featured projects caught my attention, especially the "community repair shop" movement, because we bought a Kitchen Aid mixer from friends who were moving--partly as a favor, but we also have been thinking about getting one--and it turns out that the mixer locking mechanism isn't locking.

1. Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm in Suffolk
A community supported agriculture project aiming to move beyond fossil fuel and keep its members well fed.

2. Broken Spoke Bike Co-op in Oxford
The bicycle repair group teaching essential repair skills and giving disadvantaged people the tools for employment.

3. Hulme Community Garden Centre in Manchester
Once a wasteland, this community garden centre is a fruitful learning and therapeutic resource for inner-city Manchester

4. Kilfinan Community Forest in Argyll, Scotland
A community-owned forest teaching locals sustainability, forestry and woodworking skills

5. The Pig Society in Tamar, Cornwall
A community group collectively raising nine pigs to make sausages, save money, and cut out the food miles.

6. Operation Owl in Woking, Surrey
A local conservation group providing homes for owls and other threatened birds of prey.

7. Friends and Neighbours Community Alliance in Neath Port Talbot, Wales
A neighbourhood group hosting community events and changing the fortunes of a deprived area.

8. Palace Pint in Crystal Palace, London
A community hops-growing group making their own beer.

9. St Vincent's School in Liverpool
Children at a school for the blind and partially-sighted fundraising for solar panels through music.

10. Leeds Community Clothing Exchange in Leeds
A local clothes swap bringing fashion bargains and cutting down on clothes waste through vibrant social events.

11. BeeUrban in Kennington, London
A community group training the next generation of beekeepers and providing habitats for the capital's honeybees.

12. Llandrindod Repair Cafe in Llandrindod Wells, Wales
A local mending group showing that there's a better way to binning your broken bits and bobs.

13. Sage Greenfingers in Sheffield
A community garden providing ecotherapy for asylum seekers and those with mental health problems.

14. A Lot o' Love Community Allotment in Hartlepool, Teesside
An allotment created by unemployed youngsters for the benefit of children and other young people in care.

15. Denso Marston Nature Reserve in Baildon, West Yorkshire
A volunteer-run nature reserve bring kids closer to wildlife by teaching them about bugs, birds and trees.

16. The Secret Garden in Battersea, London
The school growing project teaching pupils about food waste and the importance of sustainable sourcing.

17. A Million Miles in North Kessock, Scotland

A community project aiming to reduce car journeys, increase cycling rates and improve public transport.

Community Building #1: today is Pittsburgh's Arts Day of Giving

The Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday, is a day--modeled after "Black Friday" shopping day, the growing "Small Business Saturday" after Thanksgiving promotion by American Express (Amex members can get small credits, up to $30, for shopping at small businesses) and Cyber Monday, the e-commerce shopping day--to promote charitable giving.

The Pittsburgh Foundation has taken that one better by organizing an annual Arts Day of Giving exclusive to that region, which happens to be today, October 2nd.

Donations made between 6am today and midnight will be matched--therefore doubled.

And they have a live counter on the website, which increments upward with each donation--in the time since I started writing this entry, the total donations have increased by more than $40,000.

Special service organizations like conservancies vs. public sector operation

Photos below all from Bryant Park in late November 2012.

The New York Times has a column, "Parks Department Takes a Seat Behind Nonprofit Conservancies," about the fact that the NYC Parks Department is barely funded and takes a back seat to the nonprofits that manage the city's big parks such as Central Park, Prospect Park, and Bryant Park.

Those organizations raise millions of dollars each year--some as donations, some, depending on the organization as an add-on fee to property taxes--and for all intents and purposes "own," manage and operate the parks.

The point of this is to provide "more service" to a community-civic asset than the city could normally provide based on general tax revenues.  The idea is threefold, that (1) the "special service districts" (which include business improvement districts) provide the level of service that area stakeholders want, (2) reduce the cost to the general fund by paying for the operations directly; (3) and allow the city to divert the monies that would be spent to other areas not able to raise special funding.

In NYC, this is complicated by the fact that the city is underfunding the parks department generally.   So the spaces that have nonprofit operator-managers get high quality service, and the areas lacking equivalent organizations get very little.

Special service organizations managing publicly-owned space raise important issues:

1.  How the public, which owns the underlying civic asset, is engaged in decision-making;

2.  That differentiated areas not able to raise additional funding get less or no service;

3.  Equity issues that result from this disparity raise concerns about 14th Amendment violations ("equal protection under the law").

I have written about this with regard to business improvement districts.  See "NoMA revisited: business planning to develop community" and "Neighborhood commercial district revitalization in DC."

In my writings on community benefits agreements ("Community benefits agreements (revised)"), it was suggested that a certain percentage of awards could be directed to a fund to provide benefits to areas lacking the same kinds of monetizable opportunities.

Should the well-off public space nonprofits tithe a portion of their funding stream to support less well-off organizations?

State Senator Daniel L. Squadron proposes that "the wealthiest conservancies tithe 20% of the dollars they raise" to be used at "the less-well-endowed parks. ("Can a Tree Grow in the Bronx?," New York Times). Also see "A Radical Proposal For City Parks, and Philanthropy" from the New Yorker.  Parks advocates have fought the proposal ("Parks advocates tear into a de Blasio-backed parks proposal," Capital New York).

From the New Yorker article:

The alarm is understandable. The proposal does constitute a radical challenge to the philanthropic status quo. But there’s another reason why Squadron’s idea has troubled this community. It probes the uneasy relationship between philanthropy and inequality, an uneasiness that is as much a part of America’s philanthropic tradition as the celebrations of its voluntarism.

I agree that there is an issue of equity that should be addressed, and it is especially troubling that the parks advocates for the well-off areas express minimal for the underserved areas.  Also see "Public parks are becoming gardens of private wealth" from the Financial Times.

A necessary step in any case: creating a capacity development infrastructure for parks (and  community) groups

Squadron's legislation calls for the creation of a "Neighborhood Parks Alliance" to assist those parks that lack special organizations ("New York Senator Proposes Neighborhood Parks Alliance," WNET).  This is exactly the right way to go.  The point is not to limit success of those areas that can succeed, but to step in and provide assistance and capacity building to those communities that lack the right resources.

Another place I've come across where this is an issue is in Baltimore County with the recreation department.  For budgetary reasons, in the 1970s the department stopped providing programming, meaning that they could cut staff and save a lot of money.

These responsibilities were devolved to interested residents, implemented by creating a set of "Recreation and Parks Councils" to fund and offer programming for specific facilities, set up within specific sub-districts of the County (there are 40 parks and recreation councils covering the county).

In the well-off areas of the county, these organizations raise $2+ million each year and the centers (maintenance and construction is still provided by the County) offer a great deal of programming.  In less well-off areas, a Rec. Council might raise $15,000 in a good year. 

What the Baltimore County Rec. and Parks Department hasn't done is stepped in and built a capacity development and support infrastructure to provide training in parks, recreation, fundraising, and program development issues. 

(They also haven't provided additional financial support to the underfunded communities.)

This would help everyone, but also would begin to right the equity issues that are now unaddressed.

NYC has done this for business improvement districts, offering a great deal of capacity development and program assistance.

-- NYC Small Business Services
-- starting a BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT a step-by-step guide

Another example is the Park Pride organization in Atlanta, which supports all the parks and open spaces in the city, and has an annual conference at the end of March that always offers a great array of sessions.

There are other examples of capacity building infrastructure programs to assist community organizations.  The since ended Neighborhood Revitalization Program in Minneapolis was a great example--it provided training and support to community organizations allocating money on neighborhood projects derived from a tax increment financing program.

Conclusion.  While the 20% charge might be too much, Senator Squadron's legislation is leading to a necessary discussion of the issues raised by a kind of privatization of the management of public space and the differentiated level of services that result, accentuating already existing social and economic disparities. 

Step in with funding as needed.  And when necessary, the government budget should be used to step in and provide financial support to provide services in the communities that aren't able to self-fund.

The existence of nonprofit management organizations at high profile parks shouldn't be used to reduce funding to government agencies serving those areas not managed by such entities, which is the case in NYC.

Provide oversight and intervene when necessary.  Sometimes local community groups become crazy and the city needs to step in.  See "An example of a big problem with nonprofit organizations: who runs the show?"

Provide capacity building systems.  And regardless, agencies should step in and build the capacity development infrastructure that is necessary for all such organizations to be successful and is required in we want to reduce and eliminate the service and other disparities that currently exist.

Make organizing groups easier.  The past entry "'Networked solutions' for some problems with ANCs in DC," discusses creating a master friends organization for parks, not unlike Park Pride, that takes on general responsibilities, as a framework for the creation of individual park friends groups, without their having to each be separately incorporated.

Metropolitan-scale online fundraising initiatives: DC area and Do More 24

Many community foundations and organizations like the United Way, Catalyst Miami, etc., have organized community-scale initiatives focused on raising funds online through social media, organized around a single day.

This will be on June 6th in the DC area, called Do More 24, and is organized by United Way of the National Capital Area.

They have seeded the program with a number of "leading" donations by businesses--which is a good idea.  For example, Wegman's supermarket chain is donating 100,000 pounds of food to area food banks.  There are many sponsors and many many charities participating.

Online fundraising for charitable purposes has a mixed track record

A lot of writing on millennials says that they are very much focused on the here and now, outcomes, and of course mobile media.  General fundraising initiatives by individual organizations using social media have often been unsuccessful.

Although I think the issue is the type of organization and what they do, how well the campaign is executed, and whether or not the message/cause resonates with the target audience.  See "Keeping Your Online Fundraising Campaign from Stalling Out" from Stay Classy blog.

And while I think the MC5 band was great, probably most people under 35 years of age aren't likely to know about them.  See "MC5 movie in limbo after failure of online fundraising drive" from Ann Arbor.com.

... even if they know the song "Kick out the jams."

However, crowdfunding initiatives for both for profit and nonprofit projects have been incredibly successful.  See "Crowdfunding gives rise to projects truly in public domain" and "RocketHub, Kickstarter, other crowd-funding sites fuel creative ventures" from USA Today.

And a DC-based start up, Popularize and Fundrise, use crowdfunding techniques to generate ideas for mixed use real estate projects and to raise investment capital from residents.

Similarly, some political campaigns have also been incredibly successful in building online campaigns with a significant fundraising campaign.  Notably, the Obama Presidential campaign in both 2008 and 2012 gained volunteers, did organizing, and raised millions of dollars of campaign donations, mostly in small amounts, through social media.  

Interestingly, the University of Virginia is testing crowdfunding for research and development projects, in a fundraising campaign directed to alumni.  See "Universities explore crowdfunding, social media to raise money" from USA Today.