GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE RESOURCE GUIDE | 23 BEST PRACTICES: SITE DESIGN • Use equitable employment practices. Make efforts to recruit and hire parks and recreation employees that reflect the demographics of the communities in which they work. • Use equity tools such as those created by Madison, WI or the Government Alliance on Race and Equity to help incorporate equity considerations into the decision-making process. • Keep the design adaptive and remain responsive to community feedback. EXAMPLES: • Space to Grow is a unique partnership betweenOpenlands and theHealthy Schools Campaign in Chicago, Illinois that focuses on greening schoolyards in Chicago’s neighborhoods. Space to Grow uses a focused, two-step process to identify schools and communities with the greatest need for active recreation outdoor spaces and that are vulnerable to severe neighborhood flooding caused by combined sewer overflows. In step one, school eligibility is determined based on three factors: whether the Chicago Public Schools district has prioritized its need for a playground as high; it has sufficient space for a playground (≥30,000 sq ft); and no other major construction projects are planned. In step two, schools are invited to submit proposals and are evaluated on their flooding risk; community vulnerability; likelihood for success; and proximity to other Spaces to Grow schools.77 The partnership will have retrofitted twenty-two schoolyards by the end of 2017.78 • In 2007, Elm Playlot was a small, forgotten park within a poor inner-city neighborhood in Richmond, California’s Iron Triangle. Toody Moole, entrepreneur and founder of the nonprofit Pogo Park set about to change this by recruiting, hiring, and training about a dozen Iron Triangle residents to go door-todoor to solicit ideas for how to redesign the park from their neighbors. Emphasis was placed on getting input from neighborhood children. Residents were encouraged to “make full-scale mock-ups of their ideas, experimenting until it feels right”.79 A local fabrication company, Scientific Art Studio, helped make the residents’ unique playground creations. The same core team of residents who were hired to design the park are now paid to maintain the park and act as park stewards. The effort has become a model for transforming other parks in the Iron Triangle, and from 2013-2015, Pogo Park partnered with the Trust for Public Land to rebuild Harbor-8 Park in the Iron Triangle.80 RESOURCES: • Environmental Protection Agency: EJSCREEN: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool • City of Madison Racial Equity & Social Justice Tools (Fast-Track and Comprehensive) • Government Alliance on Race and Equity: Racial Equity Toolkit: An Opportunity to Operationalize Equity. • American Planning Association: Briefing Paper: Planning for Equity in Parks with Green Infrastructure
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