Neighborhood activists can make a difference.
That is one of the lessons that residents should heed from the example of the rebirth of Lower Kinnear Park.
For many reasons, Seattle’s first planted park has suffered from years of neglect. By the mid-2000s, the park and surrounding urban forest that wraps around the lower southwest corner of Queen Anne Hill had become an overgrown and seedy environment. It was a magnet for the homeless and a center for a bustling drug trade. In short, this historic park and local landmark had become a dark and scary place.
However, in recent years, that all began to change. The Seattle police and city officials have cleaned up the park. And one of the best moves was the creation of the Friends of Lower Kinnear Park organization, better known by the Acronym FOLKpark. This group of volunteers, neighbors and local residents that was organized in March of 2009, has spearheaded the development of a long-term plan to rebuild Lower Kinnear Park.
The group’s aim is to get more people to visit and play in the park, sustain the park’s natural setting and to celebrate the park’s significance in local Seattle history. Many may not realize that the park’s beginnings date back to 1887 when George and Angie Kinnear donated 14 acres of Lower Queen Anne Hill with views of Elliott Bay to the City of Seattle for $1. Over the years, Kinnear Park has served as a community gathering place and a concert venue.
Seattle is also stepping up to the plate. City officials have awarded the park $750,000 in opportunity funds. That is on top of the $220,000 the park has been awarded from the Neighborhood Matching Fund, the 2008 Parks And Green Spaces Levy for off-leash areas and a community match award. All-tolled, Lower Kinnear Park has been awarded $970,000 to help pay for designing and implementing a new plan aimed at developing Lower Kinnear Park into a safe place where families and residents will feel comfortable and want to gather.
But more work needs to be done and residents must stay involved for this project to be completed. FOLKpark has released a comprehensive development plan for the park that will cost about $1.5 million to complete. The additional amount needed to pay for redeveloping Lower Kinnear Park may seem like almost a rounding error for the City of Seattle. But in these difficult economic times, even this small amount of money is going to be hard to find.
Supporters of FOLKpark must remain vigilante and supportive of the process or risk the possibility that this historic location could eventually revert back to the dark and scary place where residents once feared to tread.
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