The City of San Diego is speeding up construction of new parks through partnerships with local schools. Seven new parks are under construction with another 12 to come, and it’s all thanks to the shared-use model that has grown in recent years.
David Garrick with the San Diego Union-Tribune explains how it works:
“Building relatively small joint-use parks on public school campuses allows the city to build parks more quickly and cheaply, because the land is essentially free and there is no need for a time-consuming and controversial site search, officials say…
The joint-use deals require the school district to provide the land and create the park, while the city agrees to handle maintenance, security and other expenses.”
The parks are typically open to the public on weekends, when schools aren’t in session, or when they aren’t needed for school-related activities. Many of them are in lower-income neighborhoods where public recreation is lacking.
This model has been around for decades, but has expanded in recent years, largely because of school bonds. Since 2017, the city has built 21 shared-use parks. It plans to build 35 more over the next 11 years.
Shared-use agreements have been reached with San Diego Unified, Del Mar Union, Poway Unified, San Dieguito Union High, San Ysidro, Solana Beach and South Bay Union and the San Diego Community College District.
The program has experienced hiccups. Financial agreements between the city and the districts must all be rewritten to reflect land value and maintenance cost changes over time, per a recent audit. Changes have been made to 42 agreements so far, but another 50 still need to be redone.
Read more here.