Fulfilling Visions

From plans to parks, identifying the neediest communities and ensuring ideas implemented

By Clement Lau

How should the value of a park plan be determined? Should a plan be judged by the degree to which it is implemented? What good is a plan if it offers a vision that is unfulfilled? These are the types of questions that many planners have wrestled with during their careers. 

Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation

Planning is a key function of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), where I work as a park planner. My colleagues and I plan with equity and implementation in mind, ensuring that plans prioritize the neediest communities and do not end up sitting on bookshelves. Examples of such planning documents include the Los Angeles Countywide Parks and Recreation Needs Assessment and the Community Parks and Recreation Plans for various park-poor unincorporated communities.

Countywide Parks And Recreation Needs Assessment 

The Countywide Parks Needs Assessment serves as DPR’s North Star, guiding its planning, resource allocation, and decision-making. Completed in 2016, the assessment was a historic undertaking to engage all of Los Angeles County in a collaborative process to identify and quantify the magnitude of need for parks in cities and unincorporated communities across the county and determine the potential cost of meeting that need. 

The assessment established a new way to understand and think about parks: 

• Considering parks as key infrastructure needed to maintain and improve the quality of life for all residents

• Using a series of metrics to determine park needs

• Supporting a need-based allocation of funding for parks

• Emphasizing both community priorities and deferred maintenance projects.

The Parks Needs Assessment was equity-focused, and identified communities with very high or high park need—something that had never been done before. Knowing where these underserved areas are enables DPR to focus and prioritize resources to specifically address park inequities. The findings of the assessment were so compelling that the L.A. County Board of Supervisors decided to put a parks-funding measure, Measure A, on the ballot in November 2016. Due in large part to an extensive community-engagement process for the Parks Needs Assessment and an effective dissemination of public information, Measure A passed with nearly 75 percent of voters supporting it. Measure A generates about $95 million in revenue annually and has dedicated funding for very high and high-need areas.

Community Parks and Recreation Plans (CPRPs)

The first CPRP completed by DPR was for the unincorporated community of Florence-Firestone. In 2012, DPR applied for a Sustainable Communities Planning grant from the California Strategic Growth Council to prepare additional CPRPs to address the needs of six of the most park-poor communities in L.A. County: East Los Angeles, East Rancho Dominguez, Lennox, Walnut Park, West Athens-Westmont, and Willowbrook. Collectively, these communities are home to about 257,000 residents, or about a quarter of the population living in the county’s unincorporated areas. 

 DPR won that $1-million grant despite being up against planning and transportation agencies with more experience in competing for such funds—and completed the six CPRPs in 2016. Aiding in the effort were residents, community-based organizations, the board of supervisors, and other county departments. 

© Can Stock Photo / sam74100

Each CPRP begins with an examination of local demographics, existing parks and recreational facilities, parkland gaps, recreation programs, tree-canopy coverage, transportation and connectivity to parks, and availability of land for new parks. This baseline information, together with public input, informs a detailed assessment and prioritization of local park needs. This, in turn, guides the development of a green-space vision, conceptual designs of potential new park projects, and strategies and implementation actions to address the identified needs, with the overall goal of making communities more sustainable through a variety of efforts that offer wide-reaching benefits and impacts.

Implementation of the CPRPs is well under way, with a multitude of projects at varying scales and stages of development. Highlighted below are a few key examples:

1. Woodcrest Play Park

Identified as a priority project in the West Athens-Westmont CPRP, Woodcrest Play Park opened to the public in late 2019. This innovative project transformed an underused space at Woodcrest Library into a small but vibrant public park, with a book-themed children’s play space, seating with laptop-charging stations, outdoor exercise equipment, and drought-tolerant plants.

Created through a collaboration between DPR and Los Angeles County Library, Woodcrest Play Park is located in the community of Westmont, which has about 33,000 residents and a very high level of park need, according to the Countywide Parks Needs Assessment. Thanks to this new park, 57 percent of Westmont residents now live within a 10-minute walk of a park. That number was previously 35 percent. That means an additional 7,000 residents, including 2,000 young people, can access a nearby park. 

2. 95th and Normandie Pocket Park

The park site was acquired by DPR shortly after being identified as a priority in the West Athens-Westmont CPRP. In 2020, DPR was successful in securing nearly $1.3 million in grant funds through California’s Proposition 68 Statewide Park Development Program. The 0.16-acre pocket park will include a new play area with shade, therapeutic garden, space for rotating recreational activities, public art, storage shed, and landscaping. 

The transformation of this overgrown and forgotten corner at a busy intersection into a lively and beautiful space for rest, play, socializing, and exercise will positively impact the quality of life for Westmont residents. With the addition of this pocket park, the percentage of residents living within a 10-minute walk of a park will increase from 57 percent to 74 percent. This means an additional 5,700 residents, including nearly 1,800 youths, will be able to walk to a nearby park.

3. Walnut Park Pocket Park

Walnut Park Pocket Park is the top-priority project identified in the Walnut Park CPRP. DPR acquired the property in 2019 and was awarded $4.3 million in Proposition 68 grant funds in 2020 to develop the park. The 0.5-acre park will be the first park in the community of Walnut Park, which has 16,000 residents and a very high level of park need. The pocket park will include two new playgrounds with shade, exercise equipment, a splash pad, a walking path, an outdoor performance stage, public art, a picnic and BBQ area, landscaping, lighting, and a restroom/security building. The community has long desired a park of its own and is eager to see this come to fruition.

The park is within a half-mile walk for over 13,000 residents, including 4,000 youths. By providing a new park closer to where people live, the project will help decrease vehicle miles traveled and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.  Walnut Park has a low level of urban tree canopy (16 percent), compared to the recommended standard of 25 percent. The new park will help address this by installing 38 drought-tolerant native trees throughout the site. The carbon sequestration potential of these trees is estimated to be 81,000 pounds of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the trees. The tree plantings will also provide additional benefits by alleviating the urban heat-island effect, providing cooling for the community, and capturing particulate contaminants, such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other volatile organic compounds. 

4. 92nd Street Linear Park

Florence-Firestone is home to about 66,000 residents, and has a high-level park need. The Florence-Firestone CPRP identifies utility corridors as key opportunity sites for new parks. In 2020, DPR received $7.8 million in Proposition 68 grant funds to develop a 5.5-acre park on a portion of the undeveloped utility corridor owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The new park will include new jogging/walking paths, three half-basketball courts, a multi-purpose sports field, four playground areas, shade structures, exercise equipment, an outdoor performance stage, public art, a community garden, fencing/gates, and landscaping and lighting throughout. The park is within a half-mile walk of over 17,000 residents, including 5,800 youths.

Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation

5. Roosevelt Park Mini-Pitch for Soccer

The Florence-Firestone CPRP also calls for creative partnerships to meet the recreational needs of residents, especially youth. To that end, DPR recently partnered with the U.S. Soccer Foundation and Target to replace an old, damaged, unused futsal court at an existing park with a new mini-pitch for soccer. This is a much-desired and needed improvement in a community where soccer is the most popular sport. 

Produce Results 

Plans that just sit on shelves have no use. As exemplified in the examples above, DPR is committed to preparing and implementing park plans to produce tangible results, provide multiple benefits, and improve the quality of life for the residents we serve. But this is not easy to do, and we cannot do it alone. The successful development of plans and the implementation of projects are only possible with visionary leadership, a focus on equity, engaged communities, adequate funding, and effective internal and external coordination and collaboration between DPR and its many partners. 

Clement Lau, AICP, DPPD, is a Departmental Facilities Planner with the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation. Reach him at clau@parks.lacounty.gov.