Title
Parks and Recreation Department Park Activation Neighborhood Grant Program (Ordinance S-49587)
Description
Request authorization for the City Manager, or his designee, to create a Park Activation Neighborhood Grant Program and enter into grant agreements with future selected grantees. Further authorize the City Treasurer to accept and the City Controller to disburse the funds for purposes of this ordinance. The total value of the grant program will not exceed $500,000. There is no impact to the General Fund. Funding is available through the City's allocation of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) from the federal government.
Report
Summary
The Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department builds healthy communities through parks, programs, and partnerships; and makes the City a better place to live, visit, and play. Using the “Power of Parks” the department promotes health, wellness, conservation, and social equity by providing the community with opportunities to improve quality of life through access to local parks, recreation and cultural facilities, sports programming, and open spaces.
The Phoenix area has experienced significant growth over the last decade and parks have experienced increased usage by community members since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the demand for activated parks and more structured recreational opportunities has increased. Active parks play a vital role in meeting the growing recreation needs of the community, while helping to deter negative activity in parks.
Additionally, some Phoenix parks and facilities have experienced significant challenges associated with illegal or negative behaviors. These behaviors include, but are not limited to, drug use, violent crimes, theft, trespassing, vandalized and damaged park property and equipment, excessive littering and debris, and misuse of park amenities. Many of these behaviors can be disruptive and pose health and safety risks to the surrounding community. They can also cause damage requiring costly repairs or complete re-engineering of park amenities. These challenges have been exacerbated by increased economic instability and hardship in many communities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a part of efforts to address these challenges, the Parks and Recreation Department has sought to activate park spaces to encourage positive behaviors and uses. These efforts include, but are not limited to, purposeful capital investments in desired amenities and activation through outdoor youth and adult sports programs, special events, FitPHX programming, targeted park activation programming, Mobile Recreation programming, and programming from partner organizations such as ParkRx. Recognizing the importance of further activating parks the department continues to maintain and seek new partnerships to assist with these efforts.
To assist with this, the department is seeking to utilize $500,000 in ARPA funds to develop a neighborhood grant program to facilitate activation events and programming in parks serving qualified census tracts and populations. This would provide additional opportunities for park activation in communities most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Parks and Recreation Department would create a temporary ARPA-funded position to develop and manage this program. Staff anticipate that it would take approximately 60 days to recruit for and fill this position. The grant administrator would develop this new grant program, which would be modeled after the existing neighborhood grant application process currently administered by the Office of Arts and Culture. Based on this existing grant program, it is anticipated that it would take about six months for funds to be disbursed after the application process opens to the public.
Financial Impact
Funding for this program will not exceed $500,000. There is no impact to the General Fund. Funding is available through the City's allocation of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) from the federal government.
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Manager Inger Erickson and the Parks and Recreation Department.