August 2017 - Parks & Recreation - 37

Rely on Community Expertise
Allow local residents to lend their skills,
knowledge and insights to the project
efforts. After all, no one knows a community better than those who live in it.
Carve out elements of the larger project
specific to local partners and residents,
and make sure those partners are given
proper credit. This ensures that the project will receive higher public profile and
community acceptance.
Local residents will also be able to educate you on the community's history and
past experiences. These facts may help
to inform your engagement strategy and
raise awareness to sensitives that may
exist within a community. For instance,
local GUPC partners in both Pittsburgh
and Baltimore expressed concern over
a proposed civic engagement survey to
measure how park improvement projects
affect residents' attitudes toward local
government. They explained that many
underserved communities are historically " over-surveyed, over-promised and
under delivered, " and, as a result, local
residents tend to be skeptical about proposed community projects. Sensitivities
to these issues and histories can be critical in the project's success.

Photo courtesy of Jeremy Marshall

less thought of partners (such as local
housing authorities, schools and health
care centers). This silo-busting approach
adds to the overall success and impact of
green infrastructure projects and contributes to higher-performing public spaces.
In Baltimore, Great Urban Park Campaign (GUPC) partners looked to The
6th Branch, a returning veterans service
organization, to take on weekly site maintenance that the city could not provide.
The 6th Branch now conducts regularly
scheduled cleanup days, while Rebuild
Johnston Square, a local neighborhood
organization, also plans biweekly cleanup and planting days to foster stewardship and community involvement.

Water basins along this
streamside trail on Phipps
Run in Pittsburgh's Schenley
Park, help control the flow of
stormwater into the stream.

Connect to Existing Efforts
Do not assume that the community will
come to you to offer input and knowledge.
It is import that your engagement efforts
look to already planned events and other existing community infrastructure as
a way to connect and share information.
The public participation process must take
place on the community's terms, not on
the Monday to Friday workday schedules
of the project managers. This may mean
hosting booths at neighborhood festivals,
attending local church gatherings and
weekend events. Community engagement
can also be enhanced when social, recreational or celebratory events are held at the
project site for community members, project partners and investors.
Be Willing to Let Go of Expectations
The ability to listen, be adaptive, reevaluate
and work together develops true community-inspired visions. In Atlanta, partners
received pushback from the community on
initial project designs. Their redesign took
the community's desires fully into consideration by removing a large pond from the
plan. Community members felt the pond
would be a magnet for trash, and some
feared for the safety of children and youth.
The eventual vision was substantially different than what was envisioned at the
start. It required flexibility and willingness
to go back to the drawing board to incorporate community feedback.

Community Collaboration
Isn't Easy or Quick
" Early, often and sometimes messy " is a
motto often expressed when it comes to
community collaboration. Meaningful
community engagement takes time, and it's
important for project teams to stay adaptive
and flexible, even if this means that timelines might change. Projects that offer opportunities for the community to engage in
regular project visioning and planning reach
goals more smoothly and gain much higher
community acceptance and ownership.
According to the EPA's Green Infrastructure in Parks: A Guide to Collaboration, Funding and Community Engagement:
" When community members come together to correct environmental damage
or to rehabilitate and redesign parks,
they are able to actively participate in
the decision-making process and gain a
voice in improving the local environment
and community livability. "
Thanks to ongoing support from
Southwest Airlines, NRPA continues
to identify best practices and innovative
strategies that effectively empower the
community to influence the design of
a green infrastructure project as part of
the Great Urban Parks Campaign. Stay
tuned for additional lessons learned and
updates from our community partners
through fall 2017.
Lori Robertson is NRPA's Director of
Conservation (lrobertson@nrpa.org).

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Parks & Recreation

August 2017 - Parks & Recreation

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