Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Three | Planning for Climate Change/Environment

 Gaps in park master planning frameworks


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.

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-- The State of the Great Outdoors: America’s Parks, Public Lands, and Recreation Resources, Resources for the Future (2009) 
-- Addressing 21st Century Conservation Challenges to Benefit Our People, Economy, and Environment, Conservation Conversations

Climate change and national parks.  Parks with extraordinary  environmental features face big losses in the face of sustained heat.

Many of the signature parks operated by the National Park Service will sustain serious damage from climate change and managers will have to make hard choices about what elements of parks can survive and what will have to be abandoned ("Resist, accept, direct framework").

-- Green Parks Plan: Advancing the National Park Service Mission Through Sustainable Operations, third edition, NPS
-- Planning for a Changing Climate, NPS
-- Climate change in National Parks brochure
-- Park visitation and climate change, NPS
-- Parks and Climate Change, National Parks Conservation Association
- "Some U.S. national parks are trying to go carbon-free. What does that mean for visitors?," National Geographic
-- "What to Save? Climate Change Forces Brutal Choices at National Parks," New York Times
-- Plan for Climate-Smart Cities, Trust for Public Land
-- "Saving our national parks could save us too," Salt Lake Magazine
-- "How the climate crisis is forever changing our national parks," CNN

State Parks and Climate Change


Webinar: Climate Change and State Parks

Local/City/Urban Parks and Climate Change

-- How Cities Use Parks for Climate Change Management, American Planning Association
-- Parks as a climate solution, TPL
-- (Parks) adapting to climate change: Working with nature to transition our urban environment, Plante&Cité
-- Implementing Eco-Management: Concepts and practice for more nature in the city, Plante&Cité
-- "The carbon sequestration potential of urban public parks of densely populated cities to improve environmental sustainability," Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments
-- "50 Grades of Shade," Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

According to the Trust for Public Land (The Power of Parks to Address Climate Change, webpage, report) parks are good at greening.

  • Eighty-five percent of cities are adapting parks and recreation facilities to address climate change
  • Eighty percent are enlisting parks to counter urban heat
  • Seventy-six percent are improving surfaces to reduce flooding and runoff from rains
  • Twenty percent are actively managing parks and woodlands to sequester carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. 
  • Other cities are managing parks to reduce the risk of wildfire, restoring shorelines to absorb storm surges, and opting for renewable sources of energy. 
  • Cooling green space is not equitably distributed, however. Trust for Public Land analyzed the 100 most populous cities and found that the neighborhoods where most residents identify as people of color had access to an average of 43 percent less park acreage than predominantly white neighborhoods.
If 85% of cities are addressing parks and climate change, then my thesis that this is a gap in parks master planning practice is wrong.  OTOH, it's a micro versus macro scale issue.  And the reality is that the day to day operations requirements and the increased demand from the public for both more parks and more activities and facilities makes dealing with long term issues, like climate change, difficult.  

  • During heat waves now and in the future urban microclimates put human health at risk.
  • Intercepting solar radiation is the most effective way to reduce the heat load on people.
  • Reducing air temperature is the second most effective way to reduce heat loads
  • Evidence-based climate-responsive design can make parks more thermally comfortable.

Elements of a Cultural Landscape Report, from the NPS brochure on Cultural Landscapes

Planning at the landscape scale for Sugar House Park: the cultural landscape.  A way to tie the various planning approaches together is to use the cultural landscape planning framework, which looks at sites in a variety of ways.

For the purposes of Sugar House Park we should focus on the elements of land, vegetation, buildings, and history.

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Eight | Second stage planning for parks using the cultural landscape framework"

Parley's Creek and its watershed.  In the 1800s, Salt Lake City got control of most of the water rights on nearby federal lands--the canyons--which are mostly controlled by the US Forest Service.  

Water rights are controlled by Salt Lake City Public Utilities, which defines watersheds in terms of the production of culinary water, not the flow to the Great Salt Lake.

Parley's Creek and a pond are part of the Park, and part of the Jordan River watershed, which flows into the Great Salt Lake.

To SLCPU, the "watershed" ends at the mouth of the canyon and its water treatment plant.  The Creek's contribution beyond the Canyon to "the general watershed" comes from water discharges into the Creek, but past the Canyon, much of the Creek derives from storm water.  And these days we don't get a lot of rain.


Within the park the Creek is mostly daylighted, with a small section not, because it was contaminated when the site was a prison.  The Creek Management Plan provides a number of recommendations for the Creek within the Park.  But not much has been addressed since the plan was released in 2010!

As we gear up to do a new round of master planning, one element will be the Creek and pond.  

The Park is implementing a wayfinding and interpretation signage system, so we have an opportunity to do some watershed interpretation.  

On our list of things to do, we are organizing a kind of symposium of the area river and creek stakeholders so that we start moving on Creek issues.  The state has the Jordan River Commission, and the advocacy group, the Seven Canyons Trust, works on creek daylighting issues throughout the County.

There are good models for better practice.  Nearby Fairmont Park, run by the city, has done a lot with their portion of the Creek.  Fairmont has springs, which feed a fishing pond.  Fitts Park in the City of South Salt Lake, which includes Mill Creek, has done nice stabilization work around their creek too.  

Flooding/Flood control.  In the 1980s, Salt Lake City experienced major flooding because higher than normal temperatures led to premature snow melt.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) High water levels in Salt Lake City's Sugar House Park on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

As a result, Sugar House Park was rebuilt in part as a flood control structure.  When snowmelt is high, Public Utilities will do water discharges so that the reservoirs don't overflow.  

We don't have issues at the scale of a coastal city like Boston (Climate Ready Action Plan), but sometimes parts of the park may close because of risk management planning and flood control.  Fortunately this is an infrequent occurrence.  Last year there was flooding at the park, resulting in road closure ("Flooding at Sugar House Park means the pond is working as planned," Salt Lake Tribune). 

Water conservation. The park is a lot of grass and trees and we water it.  I need to find out about the ability to use recycled water.  I don't think Salt Lake City is set up for it.  

Parks serve many people, therefore should remain a priority for water use, compared to other institutional users.  But we need to be efficient.  We are planning to add various monitoring sensors and upgrade the irrigation system ($1 million minimum) and other equipment to address this.  

We need to collect and present information on water conservation and irrigation in our plans, on the website, etc.

Turf and plants.  Grass uses a lot of water.  Two years ago, Salt Lake City Public Utilities introduced a turf blend that uses 30% less water ("SLC's drought tolerant turf is such a hit, other communities in Utah want some," Utah NPR).  

That's something to look at, but then we have a lot of grass we'd need to dig up.  One option could be to convert some sections of the park to meadow.

-- "Urban park visitor preferences for vegetation – An on-site qualitative research study," Plants, People, Planet

Trees/arboretum.  Trees: serve as shade devices, are an equity issue, and provide environmental benefits ("‘Turn Off the Sunshine’: Why Shade Is a Mark of Privilege in Los Angeles" and "How Decades of Racist Housing Policy Left Neighborhoods Sweltering," New York Times)

Planting new trees is important but faces challenges because of heat and water (Landscaping for shade, US DOE, "How Much Can Forests Fight Climate Change? A Sensor in Space Has Answers.," New York Times, "What About the Trees? Trees as Nature-Based “Shade Sails”," American Journal of Public Health, Your tree planting companion, TEAGSAC Urban Forestry Department, Ireland, "Cities Are Good at Planting Trees. They’re Not So Good at Keeping Them," Walrus).

Tree planting as a city equity measure is an important priority of the Salt Lake Mayor.

Infographic about the climate change impact of tree planting 
as part of a bus rapid transit project in Cleveland.
Sasaki 

Over the next year we are looking to become accredited as an arboretum, which provides another opportunity for environmental interpretation, improve tree cover, do fundraising, etc.  

-- American Forests
-- TreeUtah
-- ArborDay, April 26
-- National Park City Foundation
-- International Day of Forests, March 21


-- Community Forests: A path to prosperity and connection, TPL
-- "Cities Nationwide Combat Climate Change With Urban Forests," Governing
-- "Since When Have Trees Existed Only for Rich Americans?,"  New York Times
--  "Befriending Trees to Lower a City's Temperature," New York Times
-- "Why trees in Los Angeles are political, cherished, underfunded and controversial," Los Angeles Daily News

A TreeUtah event in Fairmont Park, Salt Lake City

-- "Northeast Ohio cities work to reverse history and impacts of tree canopy loss," Ideastream/NPR
-- "Mature trees are key to liveable cities – housing intensification plans must ensure they survive," Guardian
-- "‘I’m glowing’: scientists are unlocking secrets of why forests make us happy," Guardian
-- "It takes more than trees to build a livable city," Vox
-- "How America Is Making Tree Equity a Climate Solution for Cities," TIME Magazine
-- "The surprising way that millions of new trees could transform America," National Geographic

Creating an arboretum within the park is an opportunity to develop some great guides, brochures, education programs, etc. for interpretation.

Unfortunately, as more organizations shift to digital presentation, there is no longer access to the often great materials produced in the past.  The quality of today's brochures pale by comparison.

Plus, most state and local sites don't do a very good job of putting their documents online to begin with

One of my ideas is to develop an online database of such historical documents.  The closest we have is the database of the National Park Service's online brochures for the parks, as well as other materials.  NPS archives don't have everything, but remain an incredible resource.

Fauna/biodiversity.  Participating in the Bridge Park initiative 10 years ago ("Revisiting the 11th Street Bridge Park project as an opportunity rather than a folly: a new revitalization agenda for East of the River, DC"), I was struck by how one of the design teams focused on providing food not just for people, but for flora and fauna in and along the Anacostia River.

SHP is pretty sculpted.  Lawns are well maintained without much in the way of leaf litter or other elements that support insects and other fauna  ("Species richness in urban parks and its drivers: A review of empirical evidence," "City parks vs. natural areas - is it possible to preserve a natural level of bee richness and abundance in a city park?," Urban Ecosystems). 

This is a problem for residential property too ("The ‘no mow’ movement could transform our lawns," Washington Post).  From the article:
Mowing grass too short can cut the tops off flowering plants, creating lawns that are inhospitable for pollinators seeking habitats in which to feed, rest and nest, experts say. Keeping your lawn neat and trim not only is resource-intensive but can also affect its overall health. 

 British Wildlife Photography awards. Hidden Britain Runner-up 
Flower crab spider and Honey bee, Lee Mill, Devon by Lucien Harris

... creating a pollinator lawn will take a bit more thought than just letting grass grow freely, experts say. “If you have a traditional lawn, letting the grass grow to a foot tall or whatever it would be at the end of May is no value whatsoever,” says Susan Carpenter, native plant garden curator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. Grass that long could be harmful to lawn health and become a mowing nightmare.
The park has some insects ("What urban nature really means for insect biodiversity," Horizon: The EU research and information magazine), birds ("Urban parks are a refuge for birds in park-poor areas," Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution), and maybe some small animals like raccoons.

To expand fauna diversity, perhaps we should install bat houses and beehives.  We do have a community garden, and are looking to create another.

Of the entire park, only a small section along the Creek is "more wild."  

Mows to Meadow Project in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park is converting some grass areas to meadows planted with native plants.

We may wish to stop mowing some parts of the park to increase opportunities for fauna ("Meadow Developing in Flagstaff Park to Restore Habitat," Cambridge, Massachusetts).

The south side of the park abuts the I-80 freeway so it's very noisy.  

Long term, we could deal with UDOT to increase plantings on the abutting embankment to support fauna (Roadside Best Management Practices that Benefit Pollinators, FHWA) and reduce noise (that section of freeway used to be part of the park).  

How much do we manage the park for people and for fauna is a question definitely not posed by the existing master plan.

Ducks and dogs as disease vectors.  Sadly, because of the pond, the park has a hell of a lot of ducks.

Which end up contributing e. coli to the Jordan River watershed, which in turn flows into the Great Salt Lake.  

Who knew e. coli could be a park management issue.  

Errant dog owners who don't clean up after their pets are big contributors too.

Plus people feed inappropriate food like bread to the ducks.  We have signs up, but it doesn't matter.

Carbon neutrality/greenhouse gas emissions, etc..  Ellinikon Park (designer website, Ellinikon Experience Park website), under construction in Athens, Greece has the goal of being carbon neutral--increase carbon sequestration, limit or avoid emissions, and reuse embodied carbon--but it will take 35 years to accomplish.  ("Carbon-First Design: The Ellinikon Metropolitan Park in Athens," ASLA).


Should that be a goal for Sugar House Park?  While grass clippings are left on the grass, we don't compost from trees and shrubs.  That's an issue.  Can we improve our energy use?  We are bystanders to the Salt Lake Valley's air quality problems ("Reaching for Air: The Salt Lake Valley’s pollution problem can be solved. Will Utah leaders act?" and "Reaching for Air: The price Utahns pay for poor air quality," Salt Lake Tribune) but by planting more trees, etc., we can help on that score.

Transportation demand management.  Despite all the media coverage about how environmentally-conscious Utah is, the fact is that the predominate land use and transportation planning paradigm is sprawl.  While there is a transit system that is decent for what it is, but most everyone drives.

Motor vehicles significantly contribute to the air quality problem.  A lot of patrons come to the park by car.  Can we reduce our park's contribution to the problem by working to improve biking and transit options for getting to the park?

Klyde Warren Park over Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Dallas (History).

Noise/Freeway decking/capping.  To deal with aesthetics, noise, and opportunity, I have a crazy idea to deck/cap the freeway section like Klyde Warren Park in Dallas or the Big Dig in Boston.  

Many cities are pursuing such projects ("Philly’s other big I-95 project to start: A cap with an 11.5-acre waterfront park, South St. pedestrian bridge," Philadelphia Inquirer, "Feds grant $450 million toward I-5 freeway caps in North Portland’s Albina district," Portland Oregonian," "Interstate 5 in Downtown Seattle: Put a Lid on It?," Seattle Met).

Because the section next to the park (it was part of the park before the freeway was built) is so big--40 acres--it presents better opportunities compared to most other cities.  It would cost hundreds of millions and take at least a decade to plan and build.

Climate change effects on park visitors

Hubert H. Humphrey Memorial Park, Pacoima, California. Thermal radar shows the differences in heat on a basketball court after reflective paint coatings were applied. 

Sun and heat.  Parks need to acknowledge heat and climate as issues that can suppress park use.  For example, brutal heat in July and August means kids probably stay inside. 

We have an open basketball court at Sugar House Park, and last summer I went up to some teens and asked them questions about what they thought about the amenities.

They mentioned shade was an issue commenting how they liked the trees that were there.  I came back with suggestions like an additional (perhaps temporary) small shade structure, misters, and adding more trees as shade devices--we can take out a bit of asphalt and add trees.  They also mentioned their desire for a water bottle filler at the nearby restrooms. 


Reflective paint to reduce thermal effects.  Special reflective paints are a way to reduce the effect of heat on roads--the park loop road includes separated walking and biking lanes, concrete pads, courts and other facilities ("As heat waves increase, Los Angeles is coating some streets with ‘cool pavement’," Los Angeles Times, "This L.A. neighborhood's 'cool pavements' help it beat the intense heat," NBC).

Shade screens and misters. A park in South Salt Lake, Fitts Park, has a shade screen over their playground, and it makes a significant different in heat between shade and sun.  Surprisingly, shade screens are few and far between.  

Phoenix and some other cities have developed community shade plans with parks and open spaces being key to responding to the challenges presented.

-- Tree and Shade master plan, Phoenix

Playground equipment gets super hot in the sun.  The Washington Post had a great article, "Kids getting burned on swings and slides? Here’s how to fix it," about research on heat and playgrounds.

-- Guide to Climate Friendly Playgrounds, Western Sydney University
-- "Outdoor playgrounds and climate change: Importance of surface materials and shade to extend play time and prevent burn injuries," Building and Environment (2022)

Shade screens can make a 20° or more difference between shade and direct sunlight.

Hydration. An issue.  Should we have more water stations?  It turns out over 80% of the park's budget is spent on utilities including "culinary water."

Kurt Amuedo, a third grader at University Park Elementary in Denver, Colorado, displays poster protesting air pollution for Earth Day. Denver Post.

Climate change as an opportunity for civic engagement within parks and parks systems

Sustainability education.  Dealing with climate change as it effects a local park is the opportunity for teaching and learning about the environment.  

Repositioning environmental issues around sustainability leads to renewed interest and innovative approaches to issues.

 When I worked in Baltimore County in 2009/2010, I was struck by the rise in interest and involvement in sustainability.  At the time many communities were creating sustainability plans, colleges and universities and other institutions renewed their environmental initiatives around sustainability, communities like Baltimore created sustainability commissions.  There was definitely a participation boost.

We can categorize participation as external or internal:

  • External: "ambassador" programs that engage with patrons, treating the park campus as an outdoor classroom and holding workshops for students, events like Montgomery County's GreenFest 
  • Internal: planting trees, doing park clean ups, conducting citizen science projects like measuring water quality in Parley's Creek

Sugar House Park has a "Garden Center," that has been under-active.  We can reposition it around Gardening and the Environment, add a slew of activities and programs, making it a leading node within a network of top notch outdoor education centers in the Salt Lake Valley. 

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Monday, March 11, 2024

Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Two | Using Academic Research as Guidance

 Gaps in park master planning frameworks


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.


CDC image. Strategies to increase physical activity.

Using academic research for evidence-based objective guidance. When parks master plans don't have specific guidance about facilities or what to do, I think we can and should reference evidence-based academic research, focusing on those studies with findings that demonstrate in practical ways for engaging people in outdoor recreation and fitness activities.

That way decisions are made on an objective, informed basis--rather than responding to current expressed needs like pickleball or adding a splash pad without thinking through the issue(s) in a time consuming, more complicated manner.

(Coordination of resources is important too.  SHP is basically a 110 acre dog park, but not officially.  Some people want there to be a dog park. OTOH, there is a city regional park a few blocks away with a beautiful 2.5 acre dog park.  We don't need to duplicate.)

The studies, "The First National Study of Neighborhood Parks Implications for Physical Activity," American Journal of Preventative Medicine (2016) and System of Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC)  identified particular facilities as key to getting people to visit and be active in their local parks:

  • basketball hoops
  • dog parks
  • playgrounds
  • restrooms
  • recreation and senior centers (indoor facilities)
  • splash pads.
By focusing on increasing usership and participation, greater physical activity and individual improvements in health should result.

Planners at Salt Lake County Parks say adding a splash pad to a playground makes it festival-like, with hordes of users.  Columbia Heights, DC.

The Trust for Public Land ParkScore® measure uses this list of facilities as part of their ratings of park systems.

-- "The First National Study of Neighborhood Parks Implications for Physical Activity, American Journal of Preventative Medicine (2016)
-- Resources on playgrounds Studio Ludo, 
-- American Fitness Index
-- Active People, Healthy Nation, CDC
-- Play Provocations: What play can do for a city, Bentway Toronto
-- "Playground Design: Contribution to Duration of Stay and Implications for Physical Activity," International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2023)

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