October 2021 - Parks & Recreation - 46

10 -MINUTE WALK
The Tacoma park and recreation
department, along with the visiting
park and recreation professionals,
were grantees of NRPA's 10 Minute
Walk grant program, in partnership
with The Trust for Public Land and
the Urban Land Institute, to ensure
that everyone has close-to-home
access to a high-quality park and
recreation space. Over three years,
32 communities across the United
States - from sunny Miami, Florida,
to snowy Anchorage, Alaska,
and from Winooski, Vermont, with
a population of 7,000, to Los Angeles
County, with a population of
more than 10 million - received
$40,000 for a park-planning grant
to create equitable park systems.
Reimagining the Basics
Park and recreation
professionals
have taken the basics of park planning
- master planning, land acquisition,
geographic information system
(GIS) mapping and more - and
adapted them to meet the moment.
Some communities, like Camden,
New Jersey, had a high percentage
of community members living within
a 10-minute walk of a park, but
many of those spaces were not high
quality. Others, like Chattanooga,
Tennessee, had a low percentage of
access to parks within a 10-minute
walk, but the spaces they had were
of a higher quality. To address these
nuances, each community took an
approach that was best for them. El
Cajon, California, created El Cajon
2030, the city's first-ever park master
plan, to bring parks and open spaces
to a community that is fully built
out. In Lewisville, Texas, the park
and recreation agency worked to establish
a land dedication ordinance
for development that more equitably
funds park development in a rapidly
growing city. Raleigh, North Carolina,
used GIS data and community
input to develop a park quality assessment
tool to determine priorities
for its master plan update.
Equity and community
engagement were central to grantees'
park access work. In Anchorage,
park and recreation professionals
centered immigrant, refugee
and Indigenous voices in their
engagement process to learn how
they could increase access and create
culturally relevant and welcoming
spaces (tinyurl.com/t4e8j22h). The
project team held listening sessions at
the Alaska Native Heritage Center to
hear the concerns of new Alaskans
and Alaska Natives. Through these
sessions, the project team learned of
barriers, such as the need for seasonappropriate
gear and fears of wildlife
encounters. Participants expressed
the desire for culturally relevant
art, more signage, edible and
native landscaping, and culturally
relevant markets. Further south in
arid Southern California, park and
recreation professionals in Norwalk,
California, went into their master
plan process with a vision and
expectations of the project. As the
team engaged the community, they
Park and recreation professionals have taken the basics of park planning and adapted them to meet the moment.
46 Parks & Recreation | O CTOBER 2 0 2 1
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http://www.tinyurl.com/t4e8j22h

October 2021 - Parks & Recreation

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