Mayor announces Community Parks Initiative at Queens Press Conference . Image Credit: Mayor’s Office.

$130 million secured to invest in 35 under-resourced parks throughout NYC. On October 7, 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Parks & Recreation Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver announced a $130 million investment in 35 community parks throughout the five boroughs. This is the first phase of a multi-faceted program to support investment in the most under-resourced parks and communities, known as the Community Parks Initiative. The Mayor’s capital budget raised $110 million of program financing. The City Council, Borough Presidents, and foundation grants cumulatively contributed another $20 million. (read more…)

Parks agreed to implement only some of the Comptroller’s 22 recommendations. The City’s Department of Parks and Recreation solicits and awards concessions to operate golf courses, tennis courts, restaurants, and food carts on City parkland. Parks oversees about 500 concessions, and generally follows the competitive sealed bids and competitive sealed proposals processes. Revenue from these concessions equal more than half of Parks’ budget for Parks programs and services. Concession revenues in Fiscal Years 2008, 2009, and 2010 were $52.6 million, $46.1 million, and $39.8 million, respectively.  (read more…)

Parks intends to preserve community gardens under its jurisdiction. There are more than 600 community gardens participating in the City’s GreenThumb Program. Since 2001, gardens on City-owned lots have been administered pursuant to practices memorialized in a 2002 agreement between the City and the State Attorney General’s Office, which expired on September 17, 2010. Prior to its expiration, the Department of Parks and Recreation published a new set of rules that codified and strengthened the agreement’s practices and established formal regulations for administering the 283 gardens under Parks’ jurisdiction.

The new rules require Parks to renew the license of any community garden as long as it satisfies the registration criteria. If a garden fails to comply with the registration criteria, or the garden is abandoned, Parks will attempt to identify a new group to take over the garden. The rules also increase Parks’ responsibility for identifying alternate garden sites in the event that an existing garden’s lot is transferred or developed. The 2002 agreement’s Garden Review Process required Parks to provide the garden’s representative with a list of available vacant City-owned land within a half-mile radius, if any existed. Under the new process, if no vacant lots are identified within a half-mile radius, Parks will extend its search to the entire community district. According to the new rule’s statement of purpose, Parks intends to preserve all active gardens that are in good standing. Parks will only apply the transfer provisions to abandoned or persistently noncomplying gardens and only if it has been unable to identify a new group to care for the garden. (read more…)