December 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 45

work is cut out for them. " Denver
Parks and Recreation is the highest user of Denver Water, " says
Cinceré Eades, parks resiliency
principal planner. Eades recently
led the development of the Denver
Landscape Typology Manual (tinyurl.
com/yyrng5ck), which outlines
how Denver Parks can convert
irrigated bluegrass landscapes
into combined bluegrass, adapted
low-water and riparian landscapes.
Another major effort being spearheaded by the city of Denver and
the Downtown Denver Partnership
is an urban forest initiative (tinyurl.
com/y673quze). With only 4 percent current tree canopy coverage,
the goal of this pilot program is to
move the city to 10 percent coverage, while monitoring and assessing longer term impacts on health,
cooling and air quality.

Connecting Biodiversity
with Private Development
We learned early on during the
pandemic that food supply chains
quickly would be impacted by
global shockwaves. Urban agriculture is one way to integrate
vegetation into urban environments while also increasing selfsufficiency in our food supply. Integrating urban farms into building facades, parks, terraces, rooftops, parking garages and vacant
lots helps increase local food access while opportunistically greening these typically devoid spaces.
Developers striving to implement urban greening measures
within their projects can face unforeseen challenges in implement-

PHOTO COURTESY OF KATE ROBINSON

Larimer Uprooted serves as both a
green space for the public to enjoy and
a productive farm oﬀering fresh produce
to the community.

ing these initiatives. For example,
developer Urban Villages wanted to install a rooftop garden on
a parking garage in Denver and
found there was no zoning for privately owned urban farms. Grant
McCargo, CEO and founder of
Bio-Logical Capital and Urban
Villages, worked with the city
to gain an exemption for urban
agriculture as an accessory use
for parking garages - and from
that emerged Larimer Uprooted
(tinyurl.com/yyxd9a7w), a rooftop culinary garden.
McCargo states that there are
many unexplored areas in public
policy where developers and municipalities are coming together
to " figure it out " on issues ranging from district scale utilities in
private development, use of rainwater for urban agriculture, green
roof policies and greening alleys.
He recommends that cities " foster
an urban greening movement " by
becoming less rigid, supporting
innovation and allowing urban
greening to occur without as much
process and regulation. " If you can
help developers be more creative
and innovative, everyone involved
will benefit, " says McCargo.

Health and Equity
Health and equity go hand-inhand. Inequity in the distribution
of the urban tree canopy and open
space has been brought into the
spotlight during COVID-19, where
communities of color and lower income have been hardest hit by the
disease. These neighborhoods are
more likely to lack parks and green
infrastructure and are where recreation and heat island reduction often are most needed.

Integrating urban farms
into building facades, parks,
terraces, rooftops, parking
garages and vacant lots helps
increase local food access while
opportunistically greening these
typically devoid spaces.
Denver's health equity index
(tinyurl.com/y6hnn93n) is one
tool that has been used to identify neighborhoods with the highest
hurdles to leading healthy lives, and
the city has been investing in those
neighborhoods with new parks and
trail connections. Improving community health through equitable

PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N .O R G | D E C E M B E R 2 02 0 |

Parks & Recreation

December 2020 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2020 - Parks & Recreation