[Community_garden] Detroit considers sale of City's small parks

[Kari Smith]

Baltimore also recently created new zoning for parkland, send me an email if
you'd like to get more information about it.

Kari Smith
Assistant Director
Community Greening Stewardship Program
(410) 448-5663 x109
Fax: (410) 448-5895
kari.smith at parksandpeople.org
800 Wyman Park Drive, Suite 010
Baltimore, MD 21211

www.parksandpeople.org 

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Garrett [mailto:geografood at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 3:42 PM
To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Detroit considers sale of City's small parks

Folks in Detroit may want to consider what Seattle did. They passed an
initiative to permanently preserve parkland, i.e., ban its sale by the city.
The initiative was 42 and the following ordinance is 118477 and can be found
at:
http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~scripts/nph-brs.exe?s1=&s2=&s3=&s4=118477&s5=
&Sect4=and&l=20&Sect2=THESON&Sect3=PLURON&Sect5=CBOR1&Sect6=HITOFF&d=CBOR&p=
1&u=%2F%7Epublic%2Fcbor1.htm&r=1&f=G
 
Steven M. Garrett
Doctoral Candidate, Geography 
Lecturer, Urban Studies
University of Washington Tacoma

----- Original Message ----
From: "Pohl-Kosbau, Leslie" <PKLESLIE at ci.portland.or.us>
To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2008 11:55:06 AM
Subject: [Community_garden] Detroit considers sale of City's small parks


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/29/us/29parks.html
This is an article about Detroit's parks that the City is considering
 for
sale. Community gardens and greening organizations could help for the
 short
and the long term to keep these treasures for the people of Detroit
 through
use as gardens, farms, orchards, or as community parks through
 community
participation and a little help. Could ACGA write to the City of
 Detroit?
Could other organizations pitch in? We know the research about gardens
 and
green space.

Leslie Pohl-Kosbau
Portland Community Gardens
With thanks to Carolyn Q. Lee from Portland Parks for finding this.

Detroit Considers Sale of City's Small Parks 

Save for a rusty, seatless swing set, the Brinket-Hibbard Playlot
 resembles
many vacant lots pockmarking Detroit's hardscrabble east side.
Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times 
Patricia Scott, 59, grew up playing on hobbyhorses in the
 Brinket-Hibbard
Playlot, one of the parks proposed for sale. 
Looking across Hibbard Street at what is left of her childhood park,
Patricia Scott, whose family lives in the only home remaining on the
 block,
recalled better days. 
"There were nine of us kids, and I can remember how we used to have fun
 over
there, when there was a sandbox and some hobbyhorses, and I think a
 seesaw,"
said Ms. Scott, 56. "The way it is now, I think it's pitiful."
Detroit's own assessment of the park is similarly grim, according to a
recent report, which said, "Except for an old swing set frame, this
 appears
to be another vacant lot in a neighborhood of many vacant lots."
Now, some city officials are wondering, Would you like to buy it?
The Brinket-Hibbard playground is one of about 90 municipal parks -
 mostly
small play spaces - that the city of Detroit is considering putting up
 for
sale under a contentious proposal that seeks to condense and
 consolidate
park space and resources in thriving areas. The city would use the
 money
earned from any sales to maintain and possibly expand parks in parts of
 the
city that are more densely populated than, say, areas like the one
 around
Hibbard Street. 
The Recreation Department's master plan calls the proposal "park
repositioning," which officials promote as a clear-eyed way to look at
necessary downsizing, a way to align park space with the significant
demographic shifts over the last half-century in Detroit, which has
 lost
about a million people since 1950. 
But critics say it could further hurt downtrodden areas where parks are
equally appreciated, and that green space is too precious to be
 bartered for
money. 
"They call some of these parks 'surplus,'" said City Councilwoman JoAnn
Watson, an opponent of the plan, "but I don't know what the heck that
 means
because there is no such thing as a surplus of something that is
 necessary
for the good and welfare of the community. The very concept of selling
 off
public parkland in somebody's hope to address a one-time money crunch
 is not
something you do as a big city. We have to protect these parks for
 future
generations."
Some proponents of the parks say that eliminating a park in a declining
neighborhood would make a resurgence much harder.
"It could be a case of penny wise, pound foolish," said Abe Kadushin of
Kadushin Associates, an architecture firm that does a lot of work in
Detroit. "I understand the need to make money, if it's an asset that's
valuable and the city can dispose of it. But it may not be the wisest
 thing
in the long run."
The proposal seems to have stalled in the City Council's Neighborhood
 and
Community Services Committee, whose chairwoman is Ms. Watson. But the
administration of Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/kwame_m_kilpat
rick/index.html?inline=nyt-per> plans to pursue it, possibly along with
other options like neighborhood or corporate sponsorships. Though with
 more
than 300 parks - 40 percent of which are in poor condition - sales to
developers or other for-profit entities could be most beneficial.
If private buyers emerge for most of the parks in question, the city
estimates it can raise $8.1 million from selling the land (about 124
 acres)
and more than $5 million a year in tax revenue, while saving hundreds
 of
thousands of dollars on maintenance.
"It's an opportunity to look at where we can put parks closer to
 people,"
said James Canning, a city spokesman. "We've constantly looked for ways
 to
make government more efficient, and we see this whole idea of possibly
repositioning parks as promoting an increased quality of life for those
living in our neighborhoods."
Some experts say the idea makes sense. While many cities and states are
preoccupied by figuring out how to grow, several, like Detroit and New
Orleans, are grappling with how to shrink, an alternative that is
 rarely
pleasant. Recently, a melee erupted when the New Orleans City Council
 voted
to demolish four public housing projects (to be replaced by fewer units
 for
poor people). 
Eric Dueweke, a lecturer in urban planning at the University of
 Michigan
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/univers
ity_of_michigan/index.html?inline=nyt-org> who studies Detroit, said
 the
city had lost so many people that it needed fewer parks. "When the
neighborhoods were dense," Mr. Dueweke said, "it made sense to have a
 pocket
park in your neighborhood. When the neighborhood is not dense, it
 really is
questionable about whether it's a good idea." 
About 90,000 parcels, he said, or about a quarter of the lots in the
 city,
are vacant. "It's not like we're this concrete jungle," Mr. Dueweke
 said,
"where we need every inch of green space."
Financial pressures are forcing cities to make difficult decisions.
"When you have a city that's really struggling with unemployment and an
eroding tax base, you can't maintain everything, you have to be
 strategic
about what you put your money into," Mr. Dueweke said. "And I think
 most
people would rather see the city put resources into the major parks
 that
most people use."
The executive director of the National Recreation and Park Association,
 John
Thorner, urged caution in the possible sale of parks.
"Sometimes it become a self-fulfilling prophesy, a city doesn't take
 care of
a park, and so it's not used," Mr. Thorner said. "And then they close
 the
park down because it wasn't used."
Mr. Canning said Detroit made improvements to 11 parks this year, and
 spent
$16 million to renovate a major recreation center. In 2006, he said,
 $18.5
million was invested in two new recreation centers, and 18 parks were
improved around the city.
But park officials say the city has more park space than it can
 reasonably
maintain.
The Sylvester-Field Playlot, also slated for possible sale, has a
 flagpole,
some old monkey-bar-type equipment and two swing sets with dangling
 rusted
chains and only one seat. In some places the park's wire fence is bent
 to
the ground. Four discarded tires sit just outside it. Next to the park
 is a
house with bricks missing from one side. A small church is on a facing
corner; an abandoned house on another. 
These days few children live in the neighborhood, said Milford Eley,
 60, a
retired laborer who has lived near the park for seven years. Still, Mr.
 Eley
would hate to see the park disappear. 
"Parks give the neighborhood a countryside effect," he said. "It
 attracts
the squirrels, even a few pheasants. It's nice. It makes the place
 livable.
And now the city wants to sell these? My question is, To who, and for
 what?"
Susan Saulny reported from Chicago. Mary Chapman contributed reporting
 from
Detroit, and Catrin Einhorn from Chicago



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