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That is a part of our One Problem Explainer sequence, the place we break down the place mayoral candidates stand on points regarding New Yorkers. What do you need to hear about? Electronic mail us at suggestions@gothamist.com (topic line: One Problem Explainer)
New York Metropolis boasts some 2,300 municipal parks, unfold out over 30,000 acres throughout the 5 boroughs. As many have noticed, these metropolis parks turned much more important to the lives of residents over the previous yr —all through the pandemic, these areas turned the permitted setting for socializing in addition to a vital automobile for psychological and bodily escape.
But when park advocates hosted a mayoral Zoom discussion board final month, solely 5 candidates—Artwork Chang, Kathryn Garcia, Shaun Donovan, and Ray McGuire—confirmed up.
“What all the candidates ought to have seen is that this challenge is one which has captured actually each New Yorker’s creativeness and want,” stated Adam Ganser, the chief director of New Yorkers for Parks, one of many teams that hosted the discussion board. “Parks have performed an outsized position in all of our lives.”
However problems with disparity have lengthy plagued the town parks system. An evaluation by the Belief for Public Land, a parks advocacy group, discovered the common park measurement to be 6.4 acres in poor neighborhoods however 14 acres in rich neighborhoods, in response to a NY Instances story.
As with so many municipal priorities, the difficulty boils all the way down to each political will and cash. At the moment, the town spends spends round $500 million on park upkeep. That quantities to lower than .60% of the town’s complete $88 billion price range, a ratio that compares poorly with different main cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, which allocate between 2-4% of their expense budgets to parks.
Amid the shrunken price range, even gems like Riverside Park have deteriorated.
“It is a second the place for comparatively little or no cash a brand new mayor can put his or her mark on true change within the metropolis,” Ganser stated. Which is why he’s asking the candidates to decide to spending at the very least 1% of the town’s working price range on parks—which might quantity to at the very least $880 million a yr based mostly on the present price range.
Up to now, six of the eight main Democratic candidates for mayor have stated sure.
Here’s what else they’ve stated about how they’d enhance metropolis parks.
Eric Adams
As Brooklyn borough president, Adams has beforehand campaigned on elevating the funding for metropolis parks. In 2018, he issued a report that examined 270 parks in Brooklyn. The examine discovered gaps in facilities: 40% of parks surveyed didn’t have toilet services and 11% didn’t have consuming fountains.
“Inexperienced and recreation house is the nice equalizer,” Adams stated on the time.
As a mayoral candidate, Adams has pledged to spice up the park’s price range and use it towards opening “dozens of latest public areas,” closing the park fairness hole in underserved neighborhoods, and rebuilding 100 asphalt schoolyards into new inexperienced neighborhood playgrounds. He’s additionally proposing to create “Protected Routes to Parks” program, which might set up protected bike and pedestrian paths to securely join neighborhoods removed from massive open areas or parks. Like different candidates, Adams needs to make the town’s Open Streets program—which has closed off segments of public roads in neighborhoods throughout the town to vehicles—everlasting.
He’s among the many handful of candidates who has agreed appoint a Director of the Public Realm, a brand new position that New Yorkers for Parks has requested of the following mayor, which might oversee a extra holistic planning of parks, streets, and different public areas.
Shaun Donovan
Donovan, a skilled architect who labored as the previous housing commissioner beneath President Barack Obama, has closely promoted his data of city planning as a candidate. One in all his main platforms is an idea of “15-minute neighborhoods,” a requirement that every one New Yorkers reside inside quarter-hour of a inexperienced house, transit, grocery store, well being care and a college.
Throughout final month’s Zoom discussion board hosted by New Yorkers for Parks, Donovan stated he would require parks to be inside 10 minutes strolling distance from each resident’s entrance door. A part of his plan to hurry entry to parks entails making the town’s Open Streets program everlasting.
Along with rising the price range for metropolis parks, he has additionally stated that he would redistribute funds raised by parks conservancies and foundations, which frequently profit wealthier areas, and direct a number of the cash to “uncared for parks and areas.”
One other thought he has proposed is establishing a youth horticulture corps, a New Deal-like coaching program which might process youthful residents with working as stewards for public areas.
As mayor, he’s in favor of appointing a Director of the Public Realm.
Kathryn Garcia
Garcia, the previous sanitation commissioner, has made making the town extra resilient to local weather change and environmentally pleasant one of many core elements of her marketing campaign. As a part of that plan, she has pledged to renovate 100 parks in communities hardest hit by COVID, with particular focus paid on new plantings and timber.
She has additionally stated she would rework 100 blacktop schoolyards—beginning with these greater than a half mile from a park– into new inexperienced areas. Moreover, she would have the town open these areas to the general public on weekends.
All informed, she is committing to creating 150 million sq. ft of latest inexperienced infrastructure.
Garcia stated she wouldn’t create a brand new director to supervise the general public realm, however somewhat “concentrate on tighter administration of current businesses.”
Ray McGuire
In the course of the Zoom discussion board, McGuire named the West Fourth Avenue basketball courts as considered one of his favourite metropolis parks. He careworn fairness in parks as considered one of his principal targets.
Along with guaranteeing that metropolis residents are not more than 10 minutes strolling distance from a park, he would additionally make it possible for everyone seems to be inside 20 minutes of the town’s waterfront.
By way of fairness, McGuire has famous that the town should additionally capitalize on inexperienced areas and parks in and round NYCHA properties. “We should always leverage these areas to encourage our youth and our seniors to domesticate gardens and which builds neighborhood and encourages a way of pleasure,” he stated, in response to the New Yorkers for Parks survey.
The previous Wall Avenue govt has made jobs and the town’s financial restoration the centerpiece of his marketing campaign. Alongside these traces, he stated he would use metropolis parks to advertise the humanities by commissioning artists to create works throughout every of the 5 boroughs.
McGuire stated he was in favor of appointing a “level individual” to plan and make the perfect use of the town’s parks and public areas.
Dianne Morales
As famous, Morales has not but stuffed out the survey despatched by New Yorkers for Parks. Her marketing campaign didn’t reply to a number of inquiries from Gothamist by publication time. We’ll replace her part as soon as we hear again.
Her web site does, nevertheless, name for allocating metropolis funding for “park-starved neighborhoods” and constructing new open areas with neighborhood participation. She stated she would additionally improve pedestrian plazas in low-income neighborhoods and dedicate cash to activating these areas with culturally-appropriate programming.
Scott Stringer
As metropolis comptroller, Stringer made the circumstances of metropolis playgrounds and their shortage in rising neighborhoods— Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Corona, Richmond Hill, and Flatbush—the topic of a report.
As mayor he has put out an 8-page plan on enhancing parks. He has promised to construct out 200 new playgrounds by 2025 by upgrading and rising entry to underutilized college playgrounds and by carving out house in the midst of metropolis blocks that may be closed off to vehicles.
By the comptroller’s depend, solely 40% of 1,700 parks, playgrounds, and recreation services embrace a consolation station and solely 27% of bogs have altering tables.
Stringer has pledged to construct a rest room and altering desk at each metropolis park by 2029 in addition to improve the prevailing variety of bogs in bigger parks. He stated he would expedite the development with the usage of trendy trailer bogs such because the one used at Governor’s Island and Domino Park.
He has additionally proposed that the town conduct an audit of its neighborhood parks, and survey native residents to make sure that the areas sustain with native pursuits and wishes in addition to to deal with any disparities.
By way of oversight, he has proposed a brand new Mayor’s Workplace of Public Area, which might challenge building permits in addition to selling avenue redesigns to construct new parks.
Maya Wiley
In her New Yorkers for Parks survey response, Wiley didn’t decide to rising the park’s price range by 1%. As a substitute, she has referred to as for a $587 million price range, considerably lower than the $880 million park advocates are searching for.
Nonetheless, she stated she wished to double the town’s open and inexperienced house, “together with bike and bus lanes, open streets, parks, neighborhood gardens, and accessible waterfront areas.”
With respect to the waterfront, Wiley stated would discover the enlargement of entry for these in traditionally marginalized neighborhoods, together with Orchard Seashore within the Bronx and Crimson Hook in Brooklyn.
Like Garcia, Wiley has folded her particulars of her imaginative and prescient for metropolis parks into her local weather motion plan. Amongst her concepts is the creation of a brand new “NYC Inexperienced Future Drive” that may appoints its members to work on environmental points with metropolis businesses just like the Parks Division.
She can be proposing to make use of parks as native drop-off websites for a common composting program.
Wiley stated she wished to create a brand new Workplace of Public Area Administration, which might be tapped with increasing the Open Streets program amongst different initiatives. The workplace will incorporate a mixture of employees from totally different businesses that influence the general public realm, together with the Parks Division, Division of Transportation and Small Enterprise Companies.
She stated she regarded ahead to “exploring how a Director of Public Realm place might match into the Workplace of Public Area Administration as a division govt chief.”
Andrew Yang
Yang not too long ago put out a plan for parks and open house. Along with committing to elevated funding, he has supported a name from New Yorkers for Parks to permit metropolis parks to maintain their concession income somewhat than turning over the cash to the town’s basic fund.
He’s additionally pledging to construct 100 new inexperienced schoolyards over his first time period, and would additionally have a look at reimagining the usage of out of doors house at public housing developments. Citing 10 districts in Brooklyn that do not at the moment have a canine run, Yang can be promising to enhance the “per capita ratio of canine parks” and prioritize non-canine pleasant neighborhoods.
Like the opposite candidates, he has stated he would make the Open Streets program everlasting, however would broaden the times and instances that streets are closed to vehicles.
Just like Morales, he’s additionally pitching a plan to extend pedestrian plazas in underserved neighborhoods that may additionally function levels for cultural performances in addition to distributors.
Some greater concepts he has thrown out embrace resuscitating stalled park tasks just like the Queensway, an outer-borough model of the Manhattan Excessive Line, and investigating the potential of underground parks.
He stated he would additionally like the town to revisit the thought of constructing a self-filtering pool on the East River, one thing the town explored in 2019 (and that +POOL has been trying for for much longer).
Concerning the creation of a director of the general public realm, Yang stated that as mayor he would search to construct momentum for parks tasks “with out including to the bureaucratic processes that typically can stymie motion.”
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