Community Re-Envisioning of New Haven Parks
URI is locally known as an organization that supports environmental collaboration and participatory decision-making, in particular through its long-running Community Greenspace program. In fact, I was first trained in facilitation by URI staff during my time as a Community Greenspace intern in the summer of 2020 as I worked with the city’s residents to support community greening projects. Yet between October 2023–January 2024, URI widened its role to facilitate even further community engagement in the entire New Haven park system.
This past October, URI was selected by the city of New Haven to conduct a community-listening process that would guide how the city could restructure the management of its parks. The need for this process was driven by community frustration over the merger of the Parks and Public Works Departments in 2020.
Rather than just separate out the departments again, Mayor Justin Elicker noted that he “…wanted to hear from the community about what was not working and do something a little bit more comprehensive and innovative…to help the city think differently.” URI proposed a Community Input Process that was broken out into three phases: Listening, Co-Create, and Finalize.
The URI team was joined by Liz Felker, a professional facilitator with The Forests Dialogue, who led the overall process. The Listening Phase consisted of a community survey with respondents across all New Haven neighborhoods, parks staff surveys, meetings with the parks senior staff, and four stakeholder focus groups led by Felker. She utilized Mentimeter (an online voting tool) during the focus group meetings to capture participants’ input and prioritize strengths and needed improvements that they identified.
As a rapporteur for the focus groups, I had the opportunity to hear passionate New Haven leaders express the changes they would like to see within the parks system so that they might better serve their community’s needs. The Parks Friends focus group members highlighted the current inequities in the park system, particularly within environmental justice neighborhoods, and the need for improved communication. Other focus groups singled out the need for improved programming and athletic fields maintenance and infrastructure. These firsthand accounts complemented the results of the 320 survey responses, which called for improved litter management, trails and paths, mowing, natural areas, and park equipment. Overall, participants of both the survey and the focus groups were grateful for the natural areas and beauty that the various parks provide to New Haven residents and beyond.
URI staff then synthesized these results into four major categories, Accountability and Transparency, Equity, Communications, and Improving Services, which were carried forward into the first Community Forum under the Co-Create Phase in November. Members of the New Haven community, including many who had engaged in the Listening Phase in some way, were invited to join a conversation on how the New Haven park system might improve within these four themes. Everyone was given sticky notes on which they could add suggestions that fell within these categories, during which time they shared in small groups about aspects they thought should be included in the new direction of New Haven parks. These suggestions were then ranked as each person placed three sticky-dots next to the themes that they thought were most important.
After this Co-Create Phase, URI staff prepared a draft report with recommendations for the city to consider how to restructure management units and improve equity and effectiveness within the parks system. The recommendations included case studies from other cities that could address the community concerns, citing a variety of management-structure options as well as specific actions that could respond to priority concerns identified in the Co-Create Phase. After an initial review in December with Mayor Elicker and his senior staff, highlights from the report were presented at the final Community Forum in January 2024. After a presentation of the report highlights, community members who attended the forum were split into breakout groups to discuss their thoughts on URI’s recommendations and to bring up any gaps that might still be present.
At the January forum Mayor Elicker also shared his intention to separate Public Works and Parks into two separate departments, with a Parks Director leading a newly formed Parks Department. He also has noted that the department restructure will likely follow one of URI’s recommendations, by establishing three or four geographic zones across the city each with their own Deputy Director, Park Ranger, and maintenance team. In addition, the mayor suggested hiring a Superintendent of Athletic Fields to help alleviate the current issues with upkeep of fields and courts.
Mayor Elicker closed the forum with a call to the attendees to remain involved in the next phase of the process. He noted that he would recommend increases in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year to carry out the needed improvements, but added that the Alders ultimately vote on the budget. The mayor encouraged those attending the forum to come to public hearings on the budget and continue to show their support to fund the changes that they want to see in the New Haven parks system.
More information on the community listening process, including process snapshots from each engagement phase and URI’s final report, can be found on URI’s website here.