April 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 83

infrastructural improvements, chiefly
through the water management entities in the community. Pressure to alleviate flooding or comply with a Clean
Water Act consent decree requires
expenditures on projects that might
not otherwise happen. While not always directly benefiting recreation,
green rather than gray infrastructure
almost always increases habitat value
and associated anthropocentric values
of aesthetics and education. The use
of parks to accommodate green infrastructure in a sensitive manner with
due public process can provide a related community benefit of stormwater
management while remaining true to
a park mission.
Partnerships
Using green infrastructure requires
breaking down departmental and jurisdictional silos. Planning for green
infrastructure requires park departments to play a role in a larger community partnership that includes
planning, streets, public works and
water and sewer entities. This is an
opportunity to establish an additional value of parks and to promote
a central role in the discussion of
community infrastructural investment. This is also an opportunity to
envision the park system as part of a
larger network of other public, quasi-public and protected private open
space, an approach this author refers
to as " parks without borders. "
Tradeoffs
Green infrastructure is not without
the complexity of tradeoffs. Bioengineered facilities that can accommodate water and provide wildlife
habitat also take up room in parks
and therefore compete for space with
traditional recreational use. There is
a tradeoff and debate regarding the
	

More cities across the country are embracing " green " infrastructure techniques, versus
traditional " grey " infrastructure, to help mitigate stormwater runoff.

use of parks for recreation to accommodate additional stormwater, sometimes from off-site. To provide the best
perspective on the opportunities and
tradeoffs of green infrastructure in
parks, the issue is most effectively addressed at the time of a community's
comprehensive planning, or at least
in park system master planning. This
allows broad community input and
values to be brought to bear and helps
ensure that funding necessary for capital construction and maintenance is
external to the existing parks budget.
Conclusion
Green infrastructure is a combination
of our parks and open space - our
wetlands and forests, meadows and
lawns, and bioengineered constructions such as green roofs, rain gardens,
bio-infiltration swales, flow-through
planters and the like. These measures

are most effectively considered together and planned for in an integrated
comprehensive master planning process, coordinated with a wide range
of partners and associated funding
sources. Green infrastructure is best
planned for first at the comprehensive
plan stage; then at the system-wide
planning, individual park master
planning and development stages; and
in ongoing operations. It is a positive
and proactive response to increasing
environmental challenges to our communities that places parks at the center of the solution.
Detailed references for this article may
be found at www.parksandrecreation.
org/2016/April/Green-Infrastructure-Making-a-Virtue-of-Necessity.
Eric Tamulonis is a Principal and
Landscape Architect with WRT Design,
(etamulonis@wrtdesign.com).

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