May 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 45

Friends of Butler Park co-president Matthew Garbett.
Selena Butler Park, however, is much more than
the locus of one neighborhood's hopes for renewal.
Under Atlanta's Economic Development Plan, Dusenbury explains, the city's 1,900 acres of parkland are
viewed as " a tool for economic development. " In
park-poor Atlanta where much recent emphasis has
been on the vast, sprawl-connecting scope of the
BeltLine project, this partnership with NRPA represents a possible " model for addressing what needs
to happen beyond the BeltLine....a way of answering the question, 'Where is your community space?' "
NRPA, through its partnership with researchers from
Appalachian State University and East Carolina University, hopes to help provide concrete answers not
only to that question-but also to the question of what
measurable impact a community space will have on
this neighborhood.

At the Epicenter of the City
Butler Park, Dusenbury stresses, " lies at the epicenter of Atlanta's housing redevelopment-its location connecting the Fourth Ward, downtown, the
Martin Luther King historic area, and Georgia State
students. " Of particular interest right now is the new

multi-phase, high-density development happening
in the adjacent Auburn Pointe apartment buildings,
former site of the low-income, Depression-era Grady
Homes units demolished three years ago.
The first phase of the Atlanta Housing Authority
(AHA) redevelopment project, a 124-unit subsidized
senior housing facility, has remained at 100 percent
occupancy since its opening in 2008. This year, the
first multifamily phase of 154 units was completed-
and 200 more senior housing units are set to open
by summer. The Auburn Pointe wait list has swelled
to 300 names.
Trish O'Connell, AHA vice president of real estate
development, says a safe, accessible park is, from a
housing development perspective, the top priority
for the neighborhood. " Our philosophy in developing mixed-use, mixed-income housing is, we must
be able to attract market-driven residents, " she says.
" People who have lots of choices about where to
live....And the number-one amenity that people look
for when they have choices is a park. " The Auburn
Pointe redevelopment project, a recipient of federal
funding through Housing and Urban Development's
(HUD's) Hope Six program,
has dedicated $800,000 to the

Fiona Sites-Bowen

" The easiest way to get people outside is a park "
" You know a thriving, vibrant neighborhood by whether people are out and
about, " says Fiona Sites-Bowen of the
Friends of Selena Butler Park citizen group.
" And the easiest way to get people outside
is a park. " For Sites-Bowen and Matthew
Garbett, the group's president, pushing for
a refurbished and reopened Butler Park is
simply common sense-one important element of a broader commitment to their
adopted Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.
The two Atlanta transplants describe their
after-work schedules-evenings and weekends dominated by meeting neighbors,
exploring and enjoying the city, attending
planning meetings, and advocating for the
neighborhood they have chosen. All simply facets of the vital, connected urban
lifestyle they crave.
Garbett and Sites-Bowen offer some of
the history of their advocacy for the
closed park-a steady two-year effort to
increase awareness of the need for a
neighborhood green space where

residents could socialize, relax, and play.
Garbett admits that at times he felt he
was making no progress-that his efforts
to be a voice for Selena Butler Park " were
almost lost in the community until NRPA
jumped on board and got some momentum going. " Sites-Bowen agrees, adding
that even when it seemed like nothing was
happening, the Friends of Butler Park remained convinced that the renovation was
essential. " Our goal has been to see a
Selena Butler Park without the drugs and
without the danger, " she comments. " A
park that will attract all generations and
all stakeholders. "
Most of the work done by the loosely
organized friends group took the form of
canvassing neighbors, meeting informally
for brainstorming sessions, and attending
the community input meetings held by
the city. Trish O'Connell of the Atlanta
Housing Authority, one of the people
leading those meetings, says the young
members of the friends group made

valuable contributions to those sessions.
" They had a lot of good sustainable development ideas-especially concerning
the environmental pieces of the project, "
she comments.
" Things are different now, " Garbett
says with excitement as he looks ahead to
the reopening of the park. " Even though
the park is still fenced off, there is the
sense in the neighborhood that it will be
a great place....So many people are noticing what's going on now, and that's a
happy thing. "

www.NRPA .ORG

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Parks & Recreation 43

May 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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