Public Preps Parks Priorities

Pick up more litter, clean the bathrooms better, and designate more point people to deal with public park concerns.

Those are some of the top priorities New Haveners have for their city’s green spaces, as documented in a community input process overseen by the Urban Resource Initiative on behalf of the Elicker administration.

That Yale-affiliated environmental nonprofit was hired by the city this year to guide the future restructure of the city’s parks department and determine how best to tend New Haven’s outdoors.

“The goal here is to come up with a higher vision about how we can activate our parks even more,” Mayor Justin Elicker told around 40 people gathered in the basement of 200 Orange St. on a recent Tuesday night for a community forum on the matter. 

During that meeting, the latest initiative launched by URI to collect public feedback about praise and problems related to New Haven’s parks, representatives of the organization summarized what they have learned so far about how to improve local trails, sports fields, gardens and playgrounds — while hosting a group activity to garner additional insight and ideas from participants.

Following a final forum on Jan. 10, which will be the last of five focus groups held with park commissioners, Park Friends groups, sport teams, nonprofits, and residents, URI will draft a report reviewing those recommendations for city staff. 

Residents have already weighed in on what they enjoy about the city’s parks, like strong accessibility between neighborhoods to open space, as well as some of those parks’ challenges, like shoddy sports fields and littered trail ways.

In one survey distributed to around 350 residents to ascertain priorities around maintenance of outdoor spaces, more than three quarters of respondents (193 out of 252) complained about litter as the primary problem across the city. Dirty bathrooms and overflowing trash cans were other top issues listed by residents.

Another question aimed at understanding the efficacy of New Haven’s communication efforts found that only 37 percent of 340 survey-takers were aware of any public programming offered by the city’s Youth and Recreation Department. 

Click here to read through some data snapshots from that survey and other focus groups.

On Tuesday, Nov. 28, URI staffers and volunteers split into four corners of the room, each labeled with a categorical concern: Accountability and transparency; communications; equity; and services. Attendees then milled around, striking conversations with one another to brainstorm ideas about what kind of progress could be made across those categories.

Josh Randall, a volunteer with the Friends of Kensington Playground, hoped for a clearer pathway to publicize outdoor events happening across parks. Olivia Martson wondered about developing an inventory of city tree species. 

“Someone else was pining for a real parks department,” URI Director Colleen Murphy-Dunning synopsized at the end of the meeting, reading from a list of ongoing ideas like planting pollinator park pathways, bringing more dog poop bags back into parks, and creating a personnel map to point out who the public should call with park concerns or feedback.

David Joyner, who joined Tuesday’s session under the belief that it was a meeting held by URI to attract more volunteers for its tree-planting program, brought three ideas to the table: Clear fallen trees faster from heavily used park pathways; name a city staffer to respond to calls of fallen trees; and clean up the bathrooms.

“I barely use them, I try not to,” he said of the parks’ porta-potties. ​“I do number ones in them, but I don’t wanna do the other thing — but maybe if they were cleaner,” he imagined.

Born and raised in New Haven, Joyner said that he started hiking and biking more during his adulthood, describing the city’s parks as one constant source of engagement while other means of culture and entertainment have died out.

“I’ve seen the New Haven Coliseum go up and get knocked down,” he said. ​“No more wrestling, no more concerts. And they got rid of the movie theater downtown.”

After his days working in the Pez Factory over in Orange, Joyner said he needs to decompress. Rather than just escaping to the gym, he said he plans to keep turning to the parks as the city’s primary potential for restored community, fun, and wellbeing — and to find new friends by joining URI in planting trees across the neighborhood.