By Jerri Garl and Charles Smith
On Thursday, the Parks and Recreation Board are ready to discuss the final changes to the strategy plan for parks and green areas. The plan created by the Landscape + Planning agency based in Boston has been in the works for three years. While there are some misunderstandings and gaps, the plan and its chapter of the implementation chapter is one of the most comprehensive, most useful and most effective planning instruments that the city has chartered. But until last month it was mostly under the radar.
The draft (available here) rightly reflects the high-quality residents of Evanston on trees and the natural environment and underlines the city's commitment to remedy climate deals and to implement the climate protection and resilience plan (Carp).
The importance of the preservation, management and expansion of Evanston's naturalized landscapes, treetop and green infrastructure cannot be overestimated. Evanston's Seefront and Natural areas All over Evanston reflect a healthy biological diversity that will increasingly be susceptible to climate change, at the same time that it is of crucial importance for adaptation and resilience.
For this reason, it is a main goal of carp, “Evanston's urban canopy, natural areas, native vegetation and green areas to restore and expand in order to maintain and increase carbon sequences, improve liability of the rainwater drainage, to improve air quality, energy efficiency and lifespan and the urban effects on humans and keys To reduce pollinators. “
The strategic plan of parks and green space offers the opportunity to better align guidelines and practices to ensure that we can implement these worthy goals. Here are some suggestions:
- The draft refers to the master plan at Lake 2008, which priorified the protection of the sea front and demanded the restoration and expansion of the natural habitat and dune ecology. We need a protection regulation on the lake shore to ensure that fragile seamed ecosystems are preserved and improved.
- The draft also refers to the 2019 rainwater master plan, which has now been developed into a rainwater management plan. The specific recommendations for green infrastructure solutions in parks and green spaces should be part of the strategic plan of parks and green spaces.
- The city should seriously consider to create an independent department for ecological landscape management that would consolidate functions that support environmentally friendly infrastructure, forestry and cooperation with the extensive network of volunteers in the community who have contributed to creating and taking care of the natural areas of the city. The current overlapping organizational structure increases the potential to work wrongly for cross purposes and to misjunve resources, especially for long -term investments, maintenance and capital improvements as well as the optimization of employees and training.
- The strategy should recognize the existing role of Habitat Stewards and involve its expertise in natural regional management, profound knowledge of their locations and years of experience in the successful management of teams of volunteers in the community. The city should consider the opportunities for the stewards to train the city's employees on ground and other location conditions as well as resource needs.
- In contrast to what the draft suggests, the stewards actually have a “vision” for natural areas. This includes the aspiring potential of a green corridor along the North Shore Canal, the focus of an important subsidy by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation 2017-20, which resulted from the close cooperation between the former employees and the members of the community.
- There is no need for the city to create a new “volunteer program” for restoring, management and monitoring a naturalized living space and landscapes. The natural administrators of Evanston have already been organized. You either already have management plans or are in the process of developing them and reports to the city staff every year. Together, their volunteers literally devote thousands of hours a year to maintain locations throughout the city.
- Finally, the roles of the park and the recreation committee and the environmental committee should be included in the implementation plan of the strategy. Your roles should be strengthened to support your independent tasks in order to reflect the entries of the community and to identify needs and gaps. In order to reinforce the commitment of the community, the city departments should act in response to the decisions forwarded by these committees for implementation.
The surveys summarized in the design plan in public relations and community surveys reflect a consistent desire for a healthy tree baldachin, natural areas and opportunities for the passive enjoyment of the habitat of wild animals. The excellent recommendations contained in the strategic plan of parks and green spaces should lead future structural changes, strengthen the commitment of the community and increase coordination within the city to ensure that the plan can be successfully implemented.
Jerri Garl is a member of the Task Force for climate protection and resilience plan. Charles Smith is Habitat Steward and President of Jens Jensen Gardens in Evanston.