Mayor Bill de Blasio drew a crowd on Tuesday as he announced his Community Parks Initiative at Bowne Playground in Flushing. Photo Courtesy of the Mayor’s Office
With already a few ambitious projects set to define his mayoralty, Mayor Bill de Blasio this week launched another large-scale initiative, this time aimed at a more equitable city park system.
Speaking at Bowne Playground in Flushing on Tuesday morning, de Blasio announced the Community Park Initiative, a multi-faceted program to invest $130 million in under-resourced public parks located in the city’s densely populated and growing neighborhoods with higher-than-average concentrations of poverty.
“From children and parents to athletes and students, every New Yorker deserves access to clean and safe public parkland—no matter what neighborhood they live in,” de Blasio said. “The Community Parks Initiative reaffirms our administration’s commitment to the creation and maintenance of vibrant parks and public spaces in all five boroughs. Through targeted investments and programming, we will engage New Yorkers by re-creating parks in communities that need open space improvements the most. This is a framework that will address system-wide needs for park equity with solutions that have lasting and resilient results for our city’s neighborhoods.”
The initiatives first phase will target 35 community parks through a $130 million capital investment that promotes the full re-creation of the parks, $7.2 million in expense funding for fiscal year 2015 and $36.3 million in capital funding from the city Department of Environmental Protection for green infrastructure improvements at the selected sites. The initial phase, according to the mayor’s office, will target 55 neighborhoods across the five boroughs, reaching approximately 220,000 New Yorkers living within a 10-minute walk of the targeted parks.
In all, six borough parks are part of the 35 green spaces that were identified for full re-creations: Bowne, AstoriaHeights Playground, Corona Mac Park, Grassmere Playground, Rockaway Community Park, Conch Playground and Van Alst Playground.
“We will work to invest in communities with the greatest need and to create thriving public spaces to enhance the livability of under-resourced neighborhoods,” Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver said. “The elements of this framework will rest on the foundations of targeted capital investment, strong community partnerships, new programming and dedicated maintenance. We are confident that good park development is essential to the growth of a truly 21st century parks system.”
According to the administration, CPI represents the first phase of “NYC Parks: Framework for an Equitable Future.” The framework outlines Parks’ goal to increase the accessibility and quality of the city’s parks in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs through a series of immediate steps and long-term initiatives to support park development and implement a targeted level of service improvements across the system.
By Michael V. Cusenza
