Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 09/20/2001

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6 Planning August 2001. renewed interest in their own 19th century examples. Restoration projects are under way in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Louisville, New York, Oakland, Pittsburgh, and many other places. Susan Rademacher, executive director of the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy, believes that unstructured open spaces are vital to the success of a community. "I am constantly surprised by the way people rein- vent open spaces," she says. "You never know if you're going to find kite flyers, bongo play- ers, dog walkers socializing, or a rugby match. Last week, I heard this incredible music and a bagpiper, in full kilt, came strolling across one of our wild meadows." Rademacher realizes that it is difficult to sire species were allowed to take hold. Land- scaping crews, unaware of the complexity of the park ecosystems, did further damage to the landscapes by taking an industrial ap- proach to maintenance. Change began in the late 1980s when a grassroots group called the Louisville Friends of Olmsted Parks issued a report on the con- dition of the parks. The mayor responded by establishing a task force that recommended the creation of a nonprofit organization to work with the parks department to make major changes in the Olmsted system. In 1989, the nonprofit Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy was created. The scale of Louisville's park reinvestment effort is enormous. The conservancy's 1994 and community volunteers to the best prac- tices in the field. Implementing the master plan has me: more than simply restoring Olmsted's nal designs. The parks have suffered from what Rademacher calls facility creep. "Over the decades," she says, "there has been politi- cal pressure to add facilities willy-nilly rather than by design. Now we're making an effort to accommodate the needs of current park users without damaging the timeless quality of the landscape." To this end, the master plan calls for phas- ing out inappropriately placed recreational facilities when they reach the end of their useful lives. The old facilities are then relo- cated to "active use zones" and replaced with Photos ©2000 by T. Wath~n Quadrant convince park and recreation officials that there is something to gain from not building recreation faciliries. "Ir takes courage for a park administrator to choose not to clutter Up free space and just allow people to just sir and relax," she says. For decades, says Rademacher, Louisville's cash-strapped and recreation-oriented admin- istrations made maintenance of the city's his- toric system of Olmsted parks and boulevards a low priority. Playgrounds, ball fields, and basketball and tennis courts were added with little regard to how they would fit into the landscape. Damage from years of wind and ice storms was ignored. Dead and diseased -lb~s and trees were not replaced, and inva- master plan, developed after several years of public involvement, recommended $55 mil- lion in improvements. Since the plan's adop- tion by the city council, the conservancy and Metro Parks (the city's parks agency) have restored historic woodland, s, vistas, and park- ways; repaired and constructed 12 miles of park roads and paved paths and 10 miles of hiking and bridle trails; and planted more than 1,500 trees and 15,000 plants. The part- nership also has added new sports facilities, shelters, restrooms, parking, and playgrounds. Throughout the process, says Rademacher, the conservancy has stressed quality design and good landscape management and main- tenance,.often introducing maintenance staff facilities that are sensitively integrated into the park. Sometimes restoration means raking Olmsted's work to the next level. The park designer was a great innovator, says Rademacher. "He loved to experiment with new things. The last thing he would want us to do is put his landscapes under glass. Our goal is to restore and rehabilitate as Olmsted might do it today." An example is Summit Field, a 1: scape in Iroquois Park. The conservancy has restored the landscape as a functional ecosys- tem by installing a drainage system and add- ing wetlands. "If Olmsted were alive today and had our understanding of local soils and