Making perfect cents: one city tries three new approaches to overcome park development problems without breaking the bank.

Imagine a city with a need for safe parks but only limited resources. While many departments would have shied away from bringing up a park with little funding, the City of Tigard, Ore., got creative.

Local park providers everywhere face a chronic lack of adequate resources for acquiring land and developing parks. Even with more money, in many cases, suitable land in appropriate locations is not available for park use. Between 2000 and 2004, Tigard, located within the Portland metropolitan area, employed three innovative approaches to meet a variety of community park needs in order to overcome its own funding and land supply problems.

Each approach was new in the context of either Oregon park financing or park planning. These new approaches were melded with more traditional measures, such as grant funding, private property tax exemption, park naming rights, volunteer labor contributions and a planting or conservation easement to help carry out three high quality active park projects within the Tigard park system.

The three new approaches have been key, respectively, to the major expansion of a regional park, the creation of a special purpose park and the creation of a neighborhood park serving a low-income area.

The creative financing device used by the city was the first-ever use of a 20-year-old Oregon public works loan program to finance a park project, in this instance, a $2.3 million, 28-acre park expansion. The park project also capitalized on amendments to the Tigard Community Development Code to make industrial upland available for parks as a "temporary use," and to make industrial flood land available for permanent park use.

Cook Park

Located along the Tualatin River, Cook Park is the largest and only regional park in the Tigard park system. Its 79 acres include both natural and developed areas. The park is the site of the three-day Portland Rose Balloon Festival, which annually draws some 100,000 visitors.

In the late 1990s, a comprehensive master plan for the expansion and renovation of Cook Park was developed by a citizen task force working with a park planning consultant. The proposed improvements detailed several structures accessory to the park, including parking areas, landscaping, a butterfly meadow, emergency access and utility improvements. The premier addition to Cook Park was the construction of a multiuse sports field designed for soccer, little league baseball and softball.

At the time, completion of Cook Park was the City of Tigard's highest park and recreation priority. The Council-approved master plan study recommended a 10-year phase-in method for implementations. To facilitate an earlier completion date, the then-finance director, Craig Prosser, researched and developed a creative funding strategy that would allow the city to complete the park expansion in one early phase.

Prosser sought out a low-interest loan through the Oregon Economic Community Development Department (OECDD). According to then-city manager Bill Monahan, "the state's OECDD loan allowed us to finish off this project earlier than if we had had to accumulate the money first."

The loan is significant as it was the first park project financed though the Oregon Special Public Works Fund and, also, as the state's first instance of linking parks and open space funding with the economy. Its award is emblematic of the important idea that funding for parks should be treated by state government as on par with other public infrastructure.

Additional cost savings were realized when the city applied for and received a maximum $250,000 Oregon Local Government Park and Recreation Grant.

Tackling Industrial Land Policies

State and regional industrial land policies and their required incorporation into local land use codes have had the adverse effect of rendering all the land to which they apply unavailable to accommodate park uses. In Tigard, this included 15 percent of the land area, which was 5,400 acres within the city boundaries. Since the adoption of the state and regional land use laws 30 and 20 years ago, respectively, these industrial lands generally had been off-limits to park development.

Despite these long-standing local zoning restrictions and restrictive state and regional industrial land policies, Tigard staff set out to enhance the supply of land available to meet community park needs by writing innovative code changes that authorized recreational uses within industrial zoning districts. The objective was to provide access to industrial properties for active recreational uses under circumstances that were consistent with local, regional and state land use laws as long as these laws were not contradicted.

The impetus for the changes were specific opportunities that were available to remedy the problem of the dwindling supply and high cost of land suitable for active park development. These opportunities included land that was not available to other industrial users because it was tied up or not suitable for industrial development.

Potso Park

Following their adoption, the first use of the industrial land amendments was to tackle what was, at the time, the increasingly volatile community issue of lack of recreational space for dog owners. The new flexibility provided by the changes enabled the city to locate a suitable site for a first-class dogpark. The site in question was within an industrial area, away from neighbor hoods and limited park properties. This park, together with two smaller, newly-created dogparks located in other quadrants of the city, helped to reduce tensions between dog owners and non-dog owners.

In 2000, because of dog-related problems throughout the park system and a growing polarization around the issue, the city formed the Tigard Dog Parks Committee to search for a suitable site and assist residents with a safe, off-leash area where their dogs could play and socialize. At the time, except for a quarter-acre site located in the older downtown area, the city did not have permanent locations where dog owners could exercise their pets off-leash.

After reviewing numerous sites for an off-leash dogpark and in each case running into neighborhood opposition, the city and the dogparks committee used the new flexibility provided by the code changes to strike a deal with a local industry for the use of a vacant four-acre portion of a 12-acre industrial site.

A ground lease was signed with the city's partner in this project, Coe Manufacturing's general manager and vice president, Alan Knokey. The lease included no monetary rent payable by the city. In lieu of rent, the city agreed to Knokey's request to officially name the park "Potso Dog Park," after his family's dog, and to maintain a sign on the premises identifying the park by this name. An important additional consideration was a requirement that the city pursue an application with the county tax assessment office for a property exemption for the four acres.

The leased land is a square-shaped, 3.8-acre grassy field, located between two parcels developed with company industrial buildings. Site improvements include 1,400 feet of five-foot high agricultural fencing, landscaping improvements, an information kiosk and a paved path leading into the dogpark from an existing employee paved parking area. The fenced area occupies 1.7 acres of the property.

The park is operated and maintained by the city. A volunteer group, now consisting of some 55 people, monitors compliance with park rules for use of the park and assists with day to day and annual maintenance. The capital dollar cost of constructing the rent-free park was $6,500, of which $1,000 was contributed by the Dog Parks Committee.

Years after the opening of Potso Dog Park in July 2002, the facility is popular with dog owners and their pets. When asked about the park and any problems that may have arisen since its opening, Knokey, still the plant manager, said that no particular problems had emerged, and that he had " ... heard only very positive comments from company employees about the park. They think Coe is doing a good thing. I'm glad [the city and committee] talked me into it."

Bonita Park

In addition to the overall rationale of making additional land available for parks, another motivation that gave rise to the industrial land amendments was to make it possible for Tigard to acquire and use land to more equitably serve its residents. Too often, those who are most likely to be undeserved by parks are the economically disadvantaged populations.

In the case of one particular geographical area of need in Tigard, a zone change made it possible for the city to solve the problem of a dearth of parkland in a low-income and minority area.

Flanking Bonita Road in an industrial corridor of the city are three large, older multi-family complexes that serve households of modest means. Many of the more than 700 occupants of the complexes are non-English speaking, seasonal and low-wage workers and their families. The area had long dealt with drug problems, illegal immigration and rampant vandalism.

The lack of adequate playground facilities within this particular complex as well as the two adjacent low-rent complexes compelled the children of these families to play in parking lots or in the narrow lawn areas between and around buildings. According to a local affordable housing advocate, providing "a park in this area is absolutely essential to the healthy development" of the children residing in these complexes. The city police chief at that time wrote that a park would "not only give the kids a place where they could appropriately play and recreate--it also would create a space for families to enjoy--these elements are critical in creating quality neighborhoods and communities within Tigard."

Located along the opposite or industrial side of the creek from the apartment area is a 5.5-acre, lineal-shaped property, bordered on two sides by the creek channel and a 1,500-foot street that ends in a cul-de-sac. The street includes street lights and a continuous sidewalk on a side facing the water. Most of the property under discussion, consisting of low-value, unusable flood-plain, was deeded to the city as greenway in 1989 as a condition of city development approval of an industrial subdivision.

The second use of Tigard's industrial land amendments concerns this city-owned parcel. A code change allowing parks on industrial floodplain enabled the city to create a much-needed outdoor recreation space in a low-income and minority area that had none. The primary funding source for constructing and equipping this facility were competitively-awarded $165,000 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds.

The Portland-based landscape architecture firm of Percival & Shapiro was hired to develop a high-quality concept plan for the site. Activities appealing to the full range of age groups within the target population were incorporated. Facility improvements include a play structure, picnic shelter, irrigated lawn areas and a full-size basketball court. Seating and picnic areas around the playground provide places for families and individual parents to sit and watch the activities of the children at play. In addition, Tigard police were involved in the planning of the park from the perspective of safety and security.

In order to provide safe access for area children needing to cross Bonita Road in order to reach the park, the project also included the installation of a marked crosswalk and a push-button illuminated traffic light on Bonita Road, which was installed in summer 2003. Park construction was started in fall 2003. A park dedication ceremony took place in June 2004. The picnic shelter, play structure, basketball court and lawn areas are all open for public use. A split-rail cedar fence was built around a Native American heritage plant area. Collaboration with the private, non-profit "Friends of Trees'; continuing to spring 2005, resulted in the planting of 1,300 native trees and scrubs, mainly in the park's riparian zone. The development of a natural area plan is programmed through 2007.

Conclusion

Since 2000, the City of Tigard has employed three new ideas and practical approaches to create more active park acreage in the Tigard community. These approaches have included the first use of a new state program linking livability with the economy and two locally developed approaches involving industrial land for parks. The use of these new approaches has enabled the city to expand a major park site, site a difficult-to-locate park facility, and to provide a high quality park in an undeserved low-income area of the city.

Tigard's experience stresses the importance of being creative and innovative in a time of limited resources. Although the Tigard approaches reflect new ways of developing parks within the Oregon financing and planning systems, these devices are believed to be applicable to localities within many other areas.