Park People’s 2023 Canadian City Parks Report - Surfacing Solutions (October 12, 2023)
... An important read for Elected Officials, Planners and Park Nerds
Vlog Overview
This free parks and urban planning vlog is intended to share my 30+ years of parks practitioner experience married with my recently completed (2019) Phd exploring park and urban planning decision-making processes. The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone. They are not intended to be the definitive answers or positions, but instead suggest hopefully engender reflection on your own practices. For more information about my vlog, and why you should subscribe, please read the vlog entitled “The Use Case for Parks Are Like Icebergs Vlog.,” March 5, 2023. Please subscribe and share with your friends to allow me to continue to my informed knowledge sharing initiative.
Todays Ice Sculpture: Parks People’s 2023 Canadian City Parks Report - Surfacing Solutions
Park People is a Canadian organization whose focus is on Canadian parks! (What could be more important?) Their 2023 annual report interviewed 44 senior parks staff across 30 municipalities, who generously shared with us the challenges they are facing, the projects and people inspiring them, and their vision for the future of city parks. They then wove together the themes heard from those conversations with the data gathered from their surveys of 35 municipalities and over 2000 residents of Canadian cities. The goal was to surface solutions for difficult problems. The organization is funded by grants from the Weston Family Foundation. I strongly encourage planners, elected officials, community park NGOs, individuals and others to follow this organization.
Their 2023 report is free and can be accessed at this address: https://ccpr.parkpeople.ca/2023/
My approach in this vlog is to focus on the 10 key insights articulated in this excellent report entitled Surfacing Solutions. “Bob’s Takes” are my own personal comments that reflect my 30+ years of practitioner experiences and biases and research experiences that I believe align with this report. My takes were not vetted nor endorsed or reflect the position of the organization who prepared this report. My takes are based on Alberta and Edmonton legislative and policy jurisdictions, which may or may not reflect your own.
Parks People Report Insights
Parks People Insight #1. Plan for higher park use. Over the past three years, we’ve reported on the sharp uptick in usage of city parks across Canada.
Bob’s Take: Agree. Park use grew during Covid times as indoor exercise opportunities were reduced, sometimes outdoor as well, and many people adopted remote work options at home. My own recent paper in PLAN North West of the Alberta Professional Planners Institute showed that people flooded to their parks in Alberta.
Parks People Insight #2. Refocus on Park Quality. Measures of parkland are often steeped in quantity metrics.
Bob’s Take: Agree entirely, and arguably the most important insight for planners to understand and reconsider. Measures of parkland particularly in land use change processes are steeped in park quantity (i.e., greenspace within 400-500 metres), but absent quality measures such as program offered and maintenance quality. However, community use of sites is based on access and programme. For example, If you are a senior you are unlikely to be accommodated by a playground , but possibly a community garden or nature based walking trail would meet your needs. Proximity is therefore measure of only limited value.
Graffiti, poor turf on sports fields caused by over use or drought, fallen trees or broken branches, broken benches, tables or lighting, animal excrement in sand or on turf may make visitation or enjoyment less enjoyable to reduce or limit use. Most often funding for new capital development is easier to acquire than the less sexy maintenance funds. Often growth for new infrastructure may be shown in budgets but overall budgets for recreation functions too often considered a “soft” service do not keep pace so the real recreation budget “increase” is less than needed, maintenance is subsequently reduced, and become a concern. People use may decline where maintenance is poor unrelated to the value of the infrastructure or activity itself.
In short, park needs are not defined by quantitative measures only, which is the approach often defined by land use planners. If the activity program in an area only meets some needs, and what is there is poorly maintained, park use will suffer, leading some land mangers to prematurely conclude that park land is no longer needed. Only a community engaged need assessment using both quantitative and qualitative measures will provide good grounding on the adequacy of parks in an area.
Parks People Insight #3 - Explore new park typologies and funding arrangements. As municipalities intensify, new types of parks are needed to serve denser communities—particularly for cities transitioning from a suburban to more urban form.
Bob’s Take - Agreed with some qualifiers and options. While new types of parks are needed for denser cities, operationalizing this can be enormously difficult. There are differential impacts in new vs older areas. In mature areas that are densifying, purchasing additional park lands is problematic due to increasing land costs and an interest in densifying housing, not expanding parks, no matter how much needed. Today Edmonton, Calgary and the Greater Toronto area and even Tokyo Japan publicly owned and valued green spaces are being sold for housing, using an incomplete sustainable city narrative. To operationalize the benefits of increased residential density, more publicly accessible public lands, not less, is required.
In new areas, more density is being planned but park reserves are limited to 10% of the gross developable area, regardless of density. In Alberta it has been possible to acquire additional park reserves (up to 5%) but is limited to a specific parcel, not a total area or neighbourhood count. Planners, developers and elected officials also argue that applying the 5% will only frustrate developers interest in providing more dense housing which is a public goal. What other options may there be? Roadway dedications can legitimately be used for active transportation in the form of paved trails fulfilling another community recreation need.
I have argued that in new areas any unused 30% dedication for roads and utilities allowed per the MGA in Alberta could be used to address density issues. This could be implemented by combining the roads/utilities (10%) and park reserves (10%) and allocated as necessary without arbitrarily breaking them into two reserve pots each with their own purpose. Developers often do not allocated the full 30% for roads and utilities, and seek to minimize or reduce park land dedications. This change would require amendment of provincial planning legislation in Alberta.
In some major centres such as New York and Paris, road closures have been shut down and could be an option in Alberta. A portion of a roadway between City Hall and Winston Churchill Square was closed to create a continuous public space. Edmonton has had a non-sensical corporate land management policy that required the internal parks function to purchase roads from corporate land department even though the roadways were dedicated (at no cost) to the city as part of the roadway dedications. This meant that the parks function have to ask council for the money, which is a preverse disincentive to sustainable city development. Small parks on closures of lanes (i.e., Michael Phair Park) could be explored, but may face the same policy issue noted above. That policy can however be waived by City Council.
Novel ways for parks or gathering places have been or could be explored in Edmonton.
In the west end of Edmonton a public park built and maintained on top of an underground parkade. Water leakage from the park has always been an issue for the owners of the parkade, and they ask for the agreement to be voided every time the agreement is up for renewal. The City refused each time during my tenure.
There was a proposal to put a public park on top of a parking garage to be constructed displacing a park (i.e., West McCauley Park) that was a site where poor and homeless populations could hang out while accessing nearby social support agencies (i.e., soup kitchens, etc.). However, the City refused because the owner of the new parkade would not agree to unfettered access by the public. Ultimately we created a new park on some nearby largely undevelopable city land (i.e., the new Mary Burlie Park) and sold the original site (i.e., West McCauley Park).
A deferred reserve caveat was once accepted to create private golf course (i.e., Lewis Estates), which meant the residents of the Lewis Estates Area Plan got 15ha park land. While that course is open to the public, golf is not known to be a truly accessible sport for low or modest income populations.
Public road right of way was sold to the Katz group to create an implied public outdoor gathering place for events at Rogers Centre in the Ice District. However, the Katz security forces can move homeless or others deemed problematic out of the area on what was previously public lands. In recent years since the arena opened crime has spiked in the downtown not limited the Ice District.
Landowners (bless their hearts) have on occasion offered for free contaminated lands (i.e., gas stations, industrial sites). City lawyers often told me not to accept any offers of free contaminated land or even accept maintenance responsibilities for contaminated lands even on a contract basis … stay away…stay far away.
In northeast Edmonton a site contaminated with creosote was offered as a park. The City refused. Later residential and park development in the 2000s due to pressure from economic interests and with reportedly serious remediation occurring prior to development. I hope this is not the gift that keeps on giving.
There is a corporate development land function in Edmonton whose land base could address both increased residential density and additional park lands. These lands are never part of the corporate solution or public discourse supporting sustainable city development.
We could also look elsewhere for inspiration lacking in Edmonton. In Berlin a mostly closed rail link is being developed for parks and trails while leaving portion of the tracks still in place (i.e., Gleisdreieck Park). Also in Berlin a closed airport (i.e., Tempelhof) into a massive public space that accommodates cycling, gardening, picnicking, festivals, historical interpretation, dog off leash areas, washrooms, public art, etc. This occurred because of a grassroot community initiative to save the land as a public space. Both act as sites of historical if not industrial heritages. Both types of opportunities existed in Edmonton but were not pursued because of political concerns.
Park People Insight #4 -Prioritize public education along with naturalization. We might think of parks as natural spaces, but many are highly manicured and geared towards human recreational needs, including sports fields, mowed grass picnic areas, ornamental flower beds, and other amenities.
Bob’s Take: Agree with some qualifications. Displacement of aspects of manicured parks may result in the loss of activity and programme space for community of interest users (i.e., minor sports, festivals). They key is to ensure that all existing/displaced users are part of a community need assessment process that considers both new and existing uses. Displacement of field sport users may require travel by vehicle to another site, which has its own negative environmental impact, not to mention parking. Having said that, there is absolute merit in naturalizing sites or taking a hybrid approach like the photo below where a manicured site is heavily planted with trees to take advantage of ecological goods and services provided by trees.
My experience also tells me there is not enough park land to achieve all of the needs of the community that necessarily should include ecological goods and services of naturalized sites. What this means is that two well needed competing needs are contested between themselves, when the larger problem is a lack of adequate land to accommodate both. We should not fall into that trap but can target areas for naturalization where it makes sense.
Parks People Insight #5 - Systematize climate resilience park improvements. Climate change is not coming—it’s here.
Bob’s Take: Agreed. This approach should include both greenspace and recreational facility improvements. New facilities should adopt higher LEED standards. Construction standards for soft landscape elements should be as resilient as possible to combat wild swings in climate events. Portions of public parks (i.e., Lendrum School and Park Site) have been repurposed as dry ponds to accommodate dry pond development where stormwater cannot be accommodated.
Parks People Insight #6 - Deepen the focus on park equity. Despite increased awareness and dialogue about equity in the past three years, many parks departments still think of equity narrowly as the distribution of amenities and parkland.
Bob’s Take: Agreed. As the reports note, not all populations enjoy or experience parks the same way. This is arguably something I did not spend enough time on as a practitioner. My assumption was that need assessments would flesh this issue out more, but in hindsight should likely have had more depth than processes I helped craft and implement. This is particularly true for indigenous peoples. The I recall some controversies in the past where we were reticent to allow sweatlodges on public lands because it had a religious element. City is working with the Indigenous community in the proposal to develop a national urban park. More work is necessary that I believe the City has moved substantially in this area.
Equity was always part of our civic responsibilities. The City has fee waivers for people of low income. All new and redeveloped facilities are developed with handicapped accessible family friendly washrooms, and change rooms. Playgrounds are designed developed to accommodate handicapped populations. Festivals and events are held on parks celebrating culture. The City has base level of service development standards to provide a developed level of green space, but relies on community funding to cost share playgrounds, plazas picnic areas. This can mean that more affluent neighbourhoods get their amenities sooner because they may be better able to organize and fund raise. My experience was that the City was moving in positive directions to address many equity issues, but more should be done due to increased levels of social disorder using parks and park services as a tool in the City arsenal.
However, there is still work to be done on amount and distribution of parkland. Older parts of Edmonton tend to be home to lower income populations with less greenspace. This is a historical artifact of our processes. Prior to 1960 and the Joint Use agreement, park lands and school lands were not taken in the quantities we see today. Usually this meant that the schools purchased their own lands, and were physically separate from municipal parks. Today these areas are often but not entirely are the site of social disorder. Areas north of the Rogers Place are gentrifying as land values are increasing, making rentals more expensive. This does not solve the social disorder problem but only relocates it. These neighbourhoods need more parks as they densify, as well as more affordable public housing options, not simply using the parks as housing sites; the latter is part of the city strategy today (i.e., ready, shoot, aim).
Another equity option that will never be explored are pernicious policies crafted to provide affluent homeowners more access to primo green space. The ravine and river valley top of bank areas are the most expensive properties in the City. The 1970-1980 Parks and Recreation Master Plan included a policy that would take all land along top of banks or river valley as roadway rights of ways (i.e., called parkways), to create public lands to that lands to provide free access to all regardless of age, income, gender, disability, education, etc. Developers fought this approach since its inception, and councils too often caved in application to the pressure. In 2009 the City revised the Top of Bank policy to reduce or minimize public access (30% instead of 100%) due to pressure from the development industry. Moreover, the intent of the policy was further destroyed by the illogical application of the policy in ways that did not protect the best vistas and viewpoints for the general public. Internal parks social actors like myself opposed this change. A strong equity message would be sent if the City mandated a policy change today to change all top of bank or ravine areas in new undeveloped areas as top of bank parkways like the one pictured below, or even rezone current top of bank areas for public use.
Parks People Insight #7: Adopt rights-based encampment strategies. The increased visibility of the houselessness crisis since the start of the pandemic has pushed encampments into the public spotlight.
Bob’s Take: Agreed. River valley encampments are not a new issue that City struggled with for years. Earlier approaches simply removed encampments but were replaced with more socially supportive actions. In recent years those encampments moved out of the river valley into table land parks. This is a complex multi-agency problem and initiative not limited to parks.
I find it ironic that in some ways City policies have facilitated affluent homeowners in their starter mansions to legally encamp (through purchase) on the edges of the river valley but there is significant pressure to remove low income or mentally ill populations from similar areas. The financialization of housing is creating the housing affordably problem worse without addressing that root cause. The Edmonton council is working to develop affordable housing in partnerships with the provincial and federal governments. Previous councils asked but did not require such partnerships for build a new home for the Edmonton Oilers.
Parks People Insight #8: Experiment with flexible designs and policies to manage conflicting use. One of the top areas of conflict in parks is competing visions for how parks should be used.
Bob’s Take: Agreed. I also think these conflicts represents a greater underlying issue - growing and evolving needs. Dog off leash parks were not a “thing” until the 90s in Edmonton. Pickleball is new and is a growing need. Marry these issues with an interest in more naturalized rather than manicured spaces, and we see just in recent years community needs and demands are increasing. This trend is common. Minor hockey was a largely outdoor sport 60 years ago and today is substantially an indoor sport. Soccer was not a huge sport in Canada until the past 30 years, and now has moved indoor as well. We went from standard pool tanks to wave pools if not diving tanks, plus saunas and whirlpools. Indoor fitness opportunities in our facilities are now part of every major recreation centre. Schools previously were simply walk to facilities for public or catholic school children, but now there are drive to programs of choice (i.e., language, sport, pedagogy, etc.). I could go on… My point is that sometimes we miss the broader context in site discussions, where space is simply limited, and we need good community transparent processes to vet alternatives, or equally important to advocate for access to more land for public spaces.
Parks People Insight #9 - Increase funding and supports for community involvement. This year continued a trend of residents reporting they don’t feel they have the ability to influence what goes on in their local park.
Bob’s Take: Agreed. This insight speaks to how overwhelmed staff are to both facilitate park land change and to create more sustainable approaches to community development related to parks. My land use change planner lens and my studies in Edmonton would also argue that elected officials and administrators are effectively disengaging the public from park land surplussing decisions, often using an inauthentic sustainable city rhetoric (i.e., affordable housing). Moreover, this trends continues today in Toronto in the Doug Ford Greenbelt debacle, in Calgary, and recently was referenced in Tokyo, Japan by CNN. Don’t get me started….
Parks People Insight #10 - Find the internal collaboration sweet spots. In the last five years, the narrative about the myriad benefits of parks has grown louder.
Bob’s Take: Agreed. There can be library, transportation and utility service partnerships that benefit parks, and visa versa. Add to that social workers as well as protective services. This has always been the matra of most park functions. Unlike any other municipal function, parks rely on partnerships of all kinds. More is needed and required.
However, my studies and research experiences have also shown me that there are internal asymmetrical power relationships between entities. No amount of fluffy words encouraging a one city approach stopped entrepreneurial administrators from taking advantage of parks. Partnerships require a willing partner. The insights talks about how structure may or may not impede partnerships. Edmonton moved from a one general manager approach to all things parks decision-making in 1987 when I arrived, to exploding park services across a municipal organization, creating new silos, and park land being unilaterally sold for non-park purposes. Structure doesn’t matter until it does. I would also argue the partnerships that matter just as much are our external community partners, who can act to support parks, park services, and related economic, ecological, social and health and wellness benefits. This goes back to the PP insight that we need to spend more time on park related community development.
Final Thoughts
Two additional notes:
There is a well documented rich history and analysis of the benefits of parks and park services supporting sustainable city goals and outcomes, including economic, social, ecological and health and wellness benefits. See references below.
Parks have never been more vulnerable to redevelopment for non-park purposes than they are today due to neoliberal policies, and the failure of legislation to protect the public from entrepreneurial administrators or elected officials. This is occurring at the same time as climate change rages all over the world, along with rising social disorder caused by structural inequities in our society. Parks are part of the solution to address both existential threats to a healthy society.
The excellent Parks People report critiqued here is very parks and park services focussed. My take and my vlog more generally is intended to bridge the knowledge gap between recreation practitioners, the public and urban planners. None of my takes represent the views of the Parks People organization.
Previous Posts
Linking Land use Planning and Parks Practices or Why Only the Loons Show Up ( Alberta Professional Planning Institute Webinar - May 20, 2019)
Dog Off Leash Areas Planning and Implementation (February 14, 2023)
The Dog Off Leash (in) Parks Institution (February 16, 2023)
"(s)Pickleballing" Community Planning Nomenclature, June 20, 2023
The Precarity of Greenspaces in Governance Processes (September 8, 2023)
References
Boulton, Chris, Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes and Jason Byrne. “Factors Shaping Greenspace Provision: A Systematic Review of the Literature.” Landscape and Urban Planning 178 (2018): 82-101. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.05.029.
Chiesura, Anna. “The Role of Urban Parks for the Sustainable City.” Landscape and Urban Planning 68 (2004): 129-138. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2003.08.003.
Dahl, Adam and Joe Soss. “Neoliberalism for the Common Good? Public Value Governance and the Downsizing of Democracy.” Public Administration Review 74 (2014): 496-504. doi: 10.1111/puar.12191.
Feldman, Sarah “A Reconsideration of the Justifying Values of Public Parkland.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2018. ProQuest Number 10745974
Harnik, Peter and John Crompton. “Measuring the Total Economic Value of a Park System to a Community.” Managing Leisure 19 (2014): 188-211. doi: 10.1080/13606719.2014.885713.
Konijendijk, C.C., Annerstedt, M., Neilsen, A.B. and Maruthaveeren, S. “Benefits of Urban Parks – A systematic review.” Copenhagen and Alnarp: International Federation of Parks and Recreation Administration. 2013
https://edition.cnn.com/style/tokyo-jingu-gaien-redevelopment-project-hnk-intl/index.html