When It Is Finished, The Park At El Toro Will Be Four Times The Size Of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The New Park's Name--Great Park--Has A Straightforward Ring To It. Now That The Basics Have Been Decided, However, There Are New Arguments Breaking Out In Orange County. Parks Mean Different Things To Different People. So What Should A Park Of Almost 4,000 Acres Look Like?
Citizens' Ideas For How To Paint Orange County's Giant Green Canvas Are Pouring In. Some Want A Nature Preserve Where Sprawl-Weary Souls Can Relax. Others Would Like A County Fairground. There Are Proposals For Sports Stadiums And Museums, Rock-Climbing Walls And Places To Fly Model Airplanes. "There's A Desire For Just About Anything You Could Think Of," Says Michael Ray, Chairman Of The Nonprofit Great Park Conservancy. "Soccer Is The Most Popular, But There's Also People Who Want Facilities For Basketball, Baseball, Softball, Rugby, Skateboarding, Bicycling, Motorcycling. You Name It, There's A Subgroup Of People Here Doing It. And They All Have Legitimate Needs."
The Good News Is That In A Park Of This Size, It's Possible That Every Constituency May Get What It Wants. Great Park Is Among A Handful Of Gigantic Municipal Park Projects In The Works From Coast To Coast. Some 150 Years After New York's Central Park Set The Standard For Mega-Parks, Ambitious Plans Are On The Drawing Boards In Denver, Fairfax County, Virginia, And Even Once Again In New York City Itself. In Each Of These Places, Park Planners Are Seizing One-Time Opportunities To Add Huge Additions To Their Park Systems And Enhance The Quality Of Life In Their Communities. The Circumstances Of Each Case Are Very Different. But All Of The Localities To Some Degree Share The View That The Modern Mega-Park Can Function As Something Like An Attic For Recreation: It'll All Fit In There Somehow.
In Denver, Which Is Redeveloping The Site Of The Old Stapleton Airport But Has Set Aside 1,800 Acres For Parks, Some Of Which Is Being Restored As Wild Prairie, Paying Homage To A Local Landscape That Has Otherwise Disappeared In The City. As New York Converts The Fresh Kills Landfill On Staten Island Into A 2,200-Acre Park, Planners Are Eyeing Trails For Mountain Biking And All-Terrain Vehicles--Activities That Have No Home In Midtown Manhattan. "Every Kind Of Active Recreation Will Have A Place There, Particularly Things That Are Hard To Do In The City," Says Candace Damon, A Consultant Working On The Fresh Kills Park. "The Site Is So Large."
Yet Planning These Mega-Parks--Not To Mention Paying For Them--Is A Monumental Task. And As Fairfax County Is Discovering While It Plots Out A Park On The Grounds Of A Defunct Prison, Promises Can Add Up Quickly Even When You're Talking About A Space That Covers 2,400 Acres. With A Master Plan For The Site That Already Calls For A Golf Course And Lots Of Undisturbed Open Space, Fairfax Has Only About 430 Acres Left To Make Decisions On. "We're Struggling Through This Process," Says Park Planner John Pitts. "It's Viewed As The Community's Panacea, That All This Land Is The Answer To All Of Our Prayers. But We Have To Balance The Needs With What's Good Planning."
For All The Opportunistic Ambition, Some Experts Caution That Thinking Huge With Parks May Also Mean Thinking Backwards. Are Giant Land Deals The Best Way To Plan For Parks? "Ideally When You Plan, You Get Out A Map And Ask Which Part Of The County Is Well-Served With Parks, And You Build Parks In The Underserved Areas," Says Peter Harnik, Director Of The Green Cities Initiative With The Trust For Public Land. "You Think It Out Just Like Libraries And Schools. But You Don't Just Respond To A Group Of People Saying We Don't Want Anything Else Here; Let's Just Build A Park Instead."
Thinking Long Term
Orange County, To Be Sure, Came Around Slowly To The Idea For Great Park. Airport Politics Slogged On For Years Before County Voters Overwhelmingly Approved The Definitive Ballot Initiative Last Year Setting Aside El Toro As Parkland. Relieved To Have The Airport War Behind Them, Many Residents Are Just Now Realizing How Great Great Park Might Be. Located Dead In The Center Of The Nation's Third-Most Densely Populated County, The Park Will Connect With Forests And Open Space To The North And South, Making It Possible To Hike All The Way From The Beach To The Mountains Through A Continuous Corridor Of Green.The City Of Irvine, Which Sits Adjacent To El Toro And Annexed The Airbase Into Its Borders In November, Is Taking On The Complicated Task Of Planning The Park. Early Next Year, The U.S. Navy Is Set To Sell The Land To Private Developers In Four Chunks. In Exchange For The Right To Build Around The Fringes Of The Property, Developers Will Cede The Heart Of The Site For The Park And Pay $350 Million Toward Building It. "We'll Have The Land And Have The Money," Says Irvine Mayor Larry Agran. "The Essential Elements Of Great Park Will Be Landscaped Within Five Years."
Agran Thinks Of Great Park As Though It Is 10 Parks In One. A Preliminary Master Plan Shows A Large Central Park In The Middle For Passive Recreational Activities Such As Picnicking Or Frisbee. Riparian And Wildlife Corridors Are Planned, Along With A 1,000-Acre Nature Preserve. About 160 Acres Are Set Aside For Sports Fields, 580 Acres Will Become Golf Courses, And In A Bow To Orange County's Farming Roots, About 300 Acres Are To Be Used For Agriculture. There Will Also Be Land For A University Campus, Land For A Museum District And Land For A Veterans' Cemetery.
Great Park's Founders Say They Are Looking To New York's Central Park As Something Of A Model, And Have Crafted Quasi-Public Agencies Similar To The Central Park Conservancy To Look After The Park. The Great Park Corp. Will Handle Construction And Maintenance, While The All-Volunteer Great Park Conservancy Will Act As An Advocate And Fundraiser, And Will Help Arbitrate Fights Between Joggers, Cyclists, Dog Walkers, Equestrians And Other Enthusiasts Who All Want Their Space. "East Coast Parks Are Steeped In Tradition, But Where We Are Everything Is New," Says Michael Ray. "The Joy Of This Is We Get To Be The Founders Of Something We Hope Will Truly Be World Class And Be Around For Hundreds Of Years."
They're Also Thinking Long Term In New York When It Comes To Fresh Kills. The Landfill Is The Nation's Largest, And After 50 Years Of Continuous Use Was Finally Closed In 2001. From The Tops Of Four Grass-Covered Trash Mounds, One Sees A Stunning, If Paradoxical, View Of City And Nature: Manhattan And New Jersey On The Horizon And Marshes And Creeks Below. Some Parts Of The Site Were Never Used As Dumps And Can Be Converted To Park Use Soon, But Turning The Mounds Into Parkland Could Take As Long As 30 Years Since The Garbage Underneath Needs To Settle And Release Plumes Of Methane Gas.
The Completed Park Will Be Almost Three Times The Size Of Central Park. If That Goal Is Still Distant, However, The Process To Decide What The Park Will Become Is Well Underway. The City Sponsored An International Design Competition To Come Up With An Overall Vision For The Site. Now, As A Master Plan Is Being Drawn Up, A Public Outreach Process Is Beginning To Enlist Suggestions For Specific Park Uses. "There's Such A Sense Of Relief On Staten Island That The Landfill Is Closed That People Haven't Had A Chance To Think About What It Could Be," Says Candace Damon. "That Will Happen Over Months And Years."
Competing Proposals
Much Like Fresh Kills, Fairfax County's Future Mega-Park Is Healing A One-Time Sore Spot In The Community. Nobody In Fairfax Much Liked Having A Federal Prison In Their Backyard, Especially Since The Inmates Weren't From There But From Washington, D.C., 30 Miles Up The Road. Congress Closed The Lorton Prison In 2001 And The Following Year Sold Fairfax The Buildings And Grounds For $4 Million. There Was One Condition: That The Site Be Maintained Mostly As Open Space.Today, Nobody In Fairfax Calls The Prison Site Lorton Anymore. The New Name Is "Laurel Hill." It Is A Beautiful Area With Rolling Hills And Ponds, And Large Portions Will Stay That Way. Some Of The Prison Buildings Are Historic Landmarks, Designed As Gothic Fortresses, And The County Board Of Supervisors Is Considering Turning Them Into A Facility For The Performing Arts. For Other "Programmed" Parts Of The Park, The County Parks Authority Is Sorting Through Competing Proposals From Various Sports And Recreation Groups. For Example, A Youth Soccer Association Wants To Build A 35-Field Soccer Complex; Another Group Prefers Athletic Fields That Can Be Used For Multiple Sports.
These Are The Sorts Of Fights Denver Has, For The Most Part, Already Gone Through. Park Planning For The Stapleton Redevelopment Began Back In 1989, Six Years Before The Old Airport Closed. Builders Are Already Putting Up A Mix Of Housing, Offices And Retail There, But About One-Third Of The Site Was Set Aside For Parkland. The Most Significant Park At Stapleton, Currently Known By The Planning Designation "Major Urban Park," Is About 175 Acres--Much Smaller Than The Other Mega-Parks. But In Total, Denver Stands To Gain About 1,800 Acres Of Parkland By The Time The Bulldozers Leave Many Years From Now.
With Tens Of Thousands Of People Expected To Live And Work Around The Stapleton Parks, Denver Had A Unique Challenge: How Do You Plan For Parks Whose Prospective Users Aren't There Yet? Denver Relied Heavily On The Input Of Citizens In Adjacent Neighborhoods. A Citizens' Advisory Board Still Meets Regularly To Discuss What Denver's Newest Parks Should Look Like And How They Should Be Used. Happy Haynes, A Former City Councilwoman Who Co-Chairs That Board, Believes That When This Much Land Is In Play, Parks Can Indeed Be All Things To All People. "These Parks Can Serve A Lot Of Needs, From Athletic Fields To Picnics And Strolls Through The Park To A Let's Get Out Of The City And Pretend We're Not Even There Kind Of An Experience--And A Whole Bunch Of Things In Between," Haynes Says. "When You Start From Scratch, You Can Make Those All Work.
