Parks Equity: "I know that we are making a difference"

Take the survey!

Tigard’s Parks & Recreation division invites community members to participate in an online survey to help shape the city’s Parks & Recreation Master Plan, scheduled to be completed this summer. The online survey shows areas of the city where residents are not within a 10-minute walk to a park. The survey also offers information about the conditions of Tigard’s existing parks and asks for input about where the department should invest its resources to help ensure an equitable and accessible parks system. The survey is among the last opportunities for community members to offer input into the master plan. The survey is informative and – dare we say it? – fun.

To take the survey, go to this website: www.tigard-or.gov/parks. For more information about the survey, contact Marissa Grass at the City of Tigard’s Public Works Department at this email address: Marissa@tigard-or.gov

-----------------------

Tigard’s parks master plan includes a goal that’s simple but ambitious: No matter where you are in Tigard, the plan says you should be no more than a 10-minute walk from one of the city’s parks or trails.

Take a deeper look at the goal, though, and you start to see that it’s not just about proximity to a park or a trail: It’s also an effort, in a tangible way, to make sure Tigard’s parks system reflects the city’s commitment to equity.

It’s a revolutionary way to view a city’s park system, and it leads to efforts such as the survey now underway asking citizens to share their thoughts about how best to develop and maintain Tigard parklands.

Take the survey:

• English: http://bit.ly/TigardParksandRecPriorities
• Spanish: http://bit.ly/PrioridadesdeTigard

Viewing the city’s park system through an equity lens also reflects the changes Tigard is undergoing.

“Tigard is in a unique stage of development right now,” says Carla Staedter, engineering project manager for the city’s Public Works Department. (The city’s Parks & Recreation Division is part of the Public Works Department.) “We’re moving from being sort of a sleepy suburb to a sophisticated small city.”

It’s a transition where it’s particularly important to keep equity in mind, Staedter says.

Early in the city’s development, she explains, residents had larger yards, and to some extent those yards reduced the need for parks in those neighborhoods.

Now, Staedter says, new areas are being developed in the city with higher residential density and, by necessity, smaller yards. “The need for park space is greater in that kind of development,” she says.

And as new residential developments open, Tigard’s Parks & Recreation Division keeps an eye on their proximity to parks.

“We can look at the demographics of each of our areas, we can see where we don’t have parks within 10 minutes, and that allows us to start to even out the playing field across the city,” Staedter says.

But equity in a park system isn’t just about building new parks or adding trails. Rick Gruen, the head of the city’s Parks & Recreation Division, says the work also involves being sure that older parks don’t get left behind as new parks open.

“It’s like buying a car,” Gruen says. “If you have a 10- or 15-year-old car, it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. You buy a new car, it has all the bells and whistles. A new park has all the shiny bells and whistles, but how do we upgrade existing parks that are kind of aged and showing their wear and tear?”

The work planned over the next couple of years at Cook Park, the city’s largest, offers an example of how park officials tackle the challenges of older parks. Work is planned at the park’s dock on the Tualatin River to make it more usable for people with physical limitations. A new playground on order for the park’s Tot Lot, designed for younger children, will emphasize inclusive play – as will another new main playground intended for older children.

In fact, Gruen says, that new main playground will be designed to appeal to older generations as well. “How do we support multigenerational use, grandparents bringing grandkids: What’s in it for grandma and grandpa at the same time the kids are playing on it? We try to look at age-level component, multigenerational, all communities, whatever their socioeconomic status, and that’s the equity lens that the city has adopted.”

The focus on equity extends beyond park facilities: It also includes efforts to be sure that recreation programs are spread equitably through the city’s parks.

Gruen says that the Tigard City Council has supported efforts to expand the division’s recreation program so that teammates can “spread the recreation events around the city to the different parks to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to take advantage of different recreation offerings.”

Staedter adds that the city’s recreation staff also works to determine which recreation offerings will be the best fits for certain parks.

All this has to happen within budget constraints, however, which is why city officials are urging community members to participate in the online survey, part of the effort to create a new 10-year master plan for the parks system. The survey asks respondents to identify areas where they would expand or improve parks and trails. It also asks them to list their priorities for how to spend the finite amount of money budgeted for Tigard’s parks system.

Staedter, a veteran of Tigard city government, is energized by the possibilities in crafting a new parks master plan that’s infused by equity.

“I feel really proud that so much change has happened over the 40 years of my career, to the point where I could be involved in this parks master plan,” she says. “I know that we’re making a difference. I know that this is going to be fair. I know that this is going to be equitable. … It just makes me feel really good about it.”