Detroit Considers Sale of City’s Small Parks

Save for a rusty, seatless swing set, the Brinket-Hibbard Playlot resembles many vacant lots pockmarking Detroit’s hardscrabble east side.

Looking across Hibbard Street at what is left of her childhood park, Patricia Scott, whose family lives in the only home remaining on the block, recalled better days.

“There were nine of us kids, and I can remember how we used to have fun over there, when there was a sandbox and some hobbyhorses, and I think a seesaw,” said Ms. Scott, 56. “The way it is now, I think it’s pitiful.”

Detroit’s own assessment of the park is similarly grim, according to a recent report, which said, “Except for an old swing set frame, this appears to be another vacant lot in a neighborhood of many vacant lots.”

Now, some city officials are wondering, Would you like to buy it?

The Brinket-Hibbard playground is one of about 90 municipal parks — mostly small play spaces — that the city of Detroit is considering putting up for sale under a contentious proposal that seeks to condense and consolidate park space and resources in thriving areas. The city would use the money earned from any sales to maintain and possibly expand parks in parts of the city that are more densely populated than, say, areas like the one around Hibbard Street.

The Recreation Department’s master plan calls the proposal “park repositioning,” which officials promote as a clear-eyed way to look at necessary downsizing, a way to align park space with the significant demographic shifts over the last half-century in Detroit, which has lost about a million people since 1950.

But critics say it could further hurt downtrodden areas where parks are equally appreciated, and that green space is too precious to be bartered for money.

“They call some of these parks ‘surplus,’” said City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, an opponent of the plan, “but I don’t know what the heck that means because there is no such thing as a surplus of something that is necessary for the good and welfare of the community. The very concept of selling off public parkland in somebody’s hope to address a one-time money crunch is not something you do as a big city. We have to protect these parks for future generations.”

Some proponents of the parks say that eliminating a park in a declining neighborhood would make a resurgence much harder.

“It could be a case of penny wise, pound foolish,” said Abe Kadushin of Kadushin Associates, an architecture firm that does a lot of work in Detroit. “I understand the need to make money, if it’s an asset that’s valuable and the city can dispose of it. But it may not be the wisest thing in the long run.”

The proposal seems to have stalled in the City Council’s Neighborhood and Community Services Committee, whose chairwoman is Ms. Watson. But the administration of Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick plans to pursue it, possibly along with other options like neighborhood or corporate sponsorships. Though with more than 300 parks — 40 percent of which are in poor condition — sales to developers or other for-profit entities could be most beneficial.

If private buyers emerge for most of the parks in question, the city estimates it can raise $8.1 million from selling the land (about 124 acres) and more than $5 million a year in tax revenue, while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on maintenance.

“It’s an opportunity to look at where we can put parks closer to people,” said James Canning, a city spokesman. “We’ve constantly looked for ways to make government more efficient, and we see this whole idea of possibly repositioning parks as promoting an increased quality of life for those living in our neighborhoods.”

Some experts say the idea makes sense. While many cities and states are preoccupied by figuring out how to grow, several, like Detroit and New Orleans, are grappling with how to shrink, an alternative that is rarely pleasant. Recently, a melee erupted when the New Orleans City Council voted to demolish four public housing projects (to be replaced by fewer units for poor people).


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/29/us/29parks.html?hp