Community Parks Initiative | Design Portfolio

The Community Parks Initiative

A large-scale capital program investing in a brighter, greener future for all New Yorkers by transforming over 70 small, neighborhood parks.

Timeline: 2014-2017 (agency continuing work through 2032)

Employer: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

Role: Planning Program Manager, Program Design and Strategy Lead, Implementation Team Lead

Team: 30+ planners, designers, and engagement coordinators

Partners: Partnership for Parks, NYC Department of Environmental Protection, NYC Mayor's Office, CUNY School of Public Health

Leading Large-Scale Investment in Local Assets

Through the Community Parks Initiative (CPI), the City of New York is strengthening the city's park and public space network in under-resourced, high-poverty, densely populated, and growing neighborhoods. CPI is New York City's signature public realm equity program, designed to address a $1 billion gap in capital funding that we found to be concentrated in neighborhoods with high need for quality open space, based on a range of social and economic factors that contribute to community health and access to opportunity.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchel Silver launched CPI in October 2014. They announced the city would double funding for the program a year later to a total of $285 million invested in the projects scoped and initiated during my tenure with the agency. After successfully continuing to advance this program, NYC Parks announced in 2022 that the city would again commit funding to carry on this program, pledging a total of now nearly $1 billion to completely reimagine 167 parks through CPI by 2032.

Through CPI, NYC Parks engaged New Yorkers in rebuilding their local parks and implementing sustainable park designs via a more human-centered and efficient capital process. CPI introduced a new and more coordinated approach to targeting investment to parks serving the city's high-need communities, based on the key elements of good, long-term park development: capital investment, programming, partnerships, and maintenance. Our program led to agency change and city investment to unblock key challenges to success. We were able to facilitate increased hiring of landscape design and engineering staff to relieve a backlog of capital projects and build a dedicated CPI landscape design team, onboard a new cohort of engagement coordinators at the City Parks Foundation's Partnership for Parks organization, and hire seasonal and year round maintenance, gardening, and programming staff to help maintain and program sites year-round and seasonally.

Research and experience showed that fixing cosmetic problems alone would not build the trust and ownership that community parks need from local residents in order to guarantee that public investment would lead to a transformative result. By building a holistic approach and multi-faceted program that ensured 1) community voices contributed to design decisions and 2) our investment in people and parks continued after construction, we were able to lay the groundwork for sustainable community impact.

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Data Analysis

Understanding past and recent park investment across the city required our team to build the dataset that would answer our questions.

After determining that historic park investment should form the basis of our equity analysis, I led a team of colleagues from the Planning and Capital divisions, working closely with the Assistant Commissioner for Planning and Parklands, to create a new dataset combining multiple sources, from spreadsheet project tracking systems to paper-based archival construction documents. We investigated capital spending over the previous two decades (1991-2013) and found that while New York City had spent $5.7 billion on capital improvements, more than 200 parks received very minimal investment. These parks received less than $250,000 over 20 years, about the amount needed to replace playground equipment. Over the same period, the city's wealthier areas and a handful of notable signature parks had received hundreds of millions of dollars, often with the benefit of public-private partnerships and large donor contributions. Using site visits and a feature- and acreage-based estimator tool we adapted from the capital planning process, we assessed the funding gap for the 200 parks we identified to be about $1 billion.

As expected, spatial patterns of underinvestment emerged. Parks without improvements were more likely to be located in neighborhoods with Black and other minority residents, areas with large numbers of children and youth, and where environmental factors like air quality and lack of access to healthy food were also problems.

To further prioritize why and where we might focus our program, I led our team in reviewing and selecting key indicators to help us build a compelling definition for the data that would underpin the city's first park equity program. Using publicly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau and New York City Health and Hospitals, we mapped data about race and ethnicity, public health, income, and other demographic data to help select neighborhoods. We ultimately chose to focus on geographic areas where 1) 20% or more individuals were living below the federal poverty line, 2) neighborhoods had a high level of population density, and 3) where population was growing at the highest rates in the city.

Process Innovation

I worked with NYC Parks agency leadership to identify the most equitable way to prioritize public dollars from a mix of funding sources and create a proposal for what would grow into an unprecedented investment in local public realm assets across New York City.

Initially enabled by a $80 million line item in the city budget for "neighborhood parks" that had no associated plan or strategy, I understood that an approach based in data and community engagement would help make the case for the type of wholesale renovations and long-range maintenance plan that many of the city's public space assets would need to have a meaningful impact on the surrounding communities. An ambitious citywide program would both allow and require important process changes that would permanently shift how the agency does business.

Through this approach, CPI became a much larger, comprehensive program and strategy addressing not just capital investment, but also one that revamped community engagement, coordinated maintenance and planning work streams across boroughs and citywide, and encouraged regular, ongoing, coordination across agency departments and silos.

Wholesale park renovations completely transformed sites with community input. Previously, the agency would often carry out blanket improvements of a single feature type across multiple parks (i.e., new basketball blacktops) that did not impact the overall quality of the public spaces and visitor experience. We wanted communities to know that this investment was for them, and we wanted them to be able to see meaningful improvements.

A new public engagement process revolutionized the way NYC Parks engaged with the public. We initiated an ongoing collaboration between NYC Parks Planning and Capital divisions with the non-profit Partnerships for Parks, ensuring boots-on-the-ground in advance of any design decisions, and investment in building stewardship in community. Previously, small meetings would gather key stakeholders only, often during daytime hours and with little advance notice. Our approach introduced evening meetings with dinner, childcare, and translation. We advertised extensively via social media, flyers, emails, and door-knocking. Meeting facilitators represented staff from across the Parks Department, and we often had special appearances by the Parks Commissioner and elected officials from all levels of government.

Public design session insights were translated into concept designs, which we presented back to the community in two follow-up sessions for refinement. The agency has adopted the CPI engagement process as a standard operating procedure.

A "Targeted Improvements" program rolled out visible improvements. Working closely with borough leadership and maintenance staff revealed an opportunity to bring immediate results to neighborhoods that would receive improvements through CPI. Local leaders understood we could build trust and engagement with quick wins; they also knew where the extra paint was kept. We partnered with operations directors and maintenance teams to upgrade aging play equipment and benches with fresh paint, reseal court surfaces, repair handball walls, and more with zero new cost.

A new academic partnership helped evaluate impact. I facilitated a first-of-its-kind partnership with The City University of New York's School of Public Health, bringing collaboration between the Parks Department and researchers investigating the effects of public space improvements on community health. The study received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a longitudinal assessment of key community health indicators, working directly with our program's target population.

New Policy Framework

Framework for an Equitable Future is the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation's commitment to creating thriving public spaces for all New Yorkers.

I developed the concept and content strategy for a policy framework that would help the agency communicate and advance the Community Parks Initiative. Recognizing the need to generate internal and external buy-in for new initiatives, I recommended, authored, and saw the policy document through production to release. I worked closely with agency leaders and marketing and communications teams to design and launch the policy document.

The framework calls out nine initiatives, including CPI. With release of this policy, the agency and City Hall committed to a comprehensive set of immediate and long-term steps to support sustainable, equitable public realm development, and to making targeted level of service improvements across the 30,000-acre park system.

Read the Framework

Outcomes & Impact

Capital Program

Initial 47 parks (2015-2016):

Improved amenities and access for more than 312,000 New Yorkers who lived within a 1/4-mile walk
30.5% of people in these areas had household incomes below the federal poverty line
24.3% of park users were under 18
Projects improved 52 acres of parkland
The projected 72 parks for the first phases of the program were set to reach 23 NYC Community Districts with a total population of over 3 million residents

Recreation

During first program summer, increased staffing and programming locations to serve nearly 500,000 children
Expanded the city's "Shape Up" adult fitness program to offer 190 new classes at 102 sites in CPI program neighborhoods, accounting for 54% of all adult fitness classes citywide and representing a 100% increase in Shape Up classes offered
Held hundreds of one-off and partner programs in CPI communities

Maintenance

Completed 60 "Targeted Improvements" that gave CPI neighborhoods quick wins under the program
Directed over $1 million existing, in-house resources to CPI neighborhoods, including materials and staff time, increasing care and presence at neglected parks
Deployed 100 new maintenance workers in CPI neighborhoods, in partnership with the New York City Council

Partnerships

Public input meetings engaged 2,100 community stakeholders citywide (average 45 participants per park)
Established and supported friends-of stewardship groups at 25 of 35 year 1 sites by spring 2017
Piloted online feedback system for plans and designs, receiving 245 comments
Engaged over 14,500 volunteers at 537 projects in CPI neighborhoods
Developed partnerships with NYC park conservancies (i.e., Central Park, Friends of the Highline) on collaborations valuing over $15 million to contribute funding and in-kind services complimenting CPI program investments