December 2019 - Parks & Recreation - 40

GREENING

businesses (such as small business
disruption funds) and strategies to
create jobs for longtime residents
(such as first source hiring ordinances). About half of the proactive projects surveyed employ
or have proposed these strategies.
Multidisciplinary approaches that

The goal is to increase the
supply of below-market-rate
housing units near new parks.
prioritize businesses and jobs can
go further than efforts that solely
center on affordable housing by
tackling displacement threats on
two fronts: keeping rent or mortgage payments affordable and
increasing the earnings of low-income residents.
For Private-Sector Housing Developers: We identified seven strategies that require private-sector
housing developers to contribute
to the production of affordable
housing, either by directly building new below-market-rate units
or paying fees that cities can use to
build such units. These strategies

are being used in 85 percent of the
proactive park projects surveyed.
These strategies include wellknown tools, such as inclusionary zoning, production incentives
(such as density bonuses) and developer impact fees for affordable
housing. The goal is to increase
the supply of below-market-rate
housing units near new parks.
Most housing is constructed by
the private sector, highlighting the
importance of these strategies,
and several cities have deliberately targeted the implementation of
these policies in areas surrounding new parks, demonstrating that
these strategies can have a good
nexus with park development.
For Nonprofit and Public Housing Organizations: These strategies focus on nonprofit and public
housing organizations that build
or manage subsidized housing, including municipal-level housing
departments. Although we only
identified three strategies as part
of this group, they have been proposed or implemented in every
one of the 13 proactive projects we
surveyed, demonstrating their importance. These strategies include

housing trust funds, community
land trusts and other forms of land
banking and value-capture mechanisms, such as tax-increment financing, that generate funds for
affordable housing.
For Public Park Funding Agencies:
We identified one strategy that can
be used by park funding agencies,
such as states, the federal government and counties. Funders can
require or incentivize grant recipients to include anti-displacement
strategies in their proposals for
park development projects. Los
Angeles County has been a leader
in this area. The implementation
plan for Measure A, a Los Angeles
County parcel-tax funding source
for parks, includes displacementavoidance strategies. Measure A
awards additional points to competitive grant applications that
include such strategies. In California, some state conservancies that
fund parks, open space, trails, environmental restoration and green
infrastructure projects are also beginning to implement this strategy
- as is the state's Strategic Growth
Council, which administers grants
for climate resilience. This demonstrates how government agencies
can create overarching policies that
require or incentivize park developers to work with housing advocates
and developers to deploy antidisplacement strategies to unlock
public funding for parks.

Recommendations for
Parks-Related AntiDisplacement Strategies
Based on this survey of the state

Community engagement creates
opportunities for local residents and
community-based organizations to educate
local governments about challenges.
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December 2019 - Parks & Recreation

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