Duncan on parks
The City of Fresno is currently in the middle of a $40 million dollars parks improvement and expansion plan. While there is some debate about the financing of this effort, there is no disagreement about the need for this long overdue investment.
During the next Mayor’s first term, the completion of these projects developed by a citizen’s panel will take up available park and open space resources. This will mean that adding new parks or open spaces will not be done using traditional methods.
Some may say we should just make the developers pay for the cost. We then run into the problem of forcing new home buyers to burden the cost of additional parks. With home prices high, adding these costs make it even more difficult for home buyers, especially first time home buyers, to afford a home.
But there is a new way to add parks, the method we used at the Copper River development in my district. We allowed the developer to install a public park, and the city offered development fee credits to offset the cost. It worked. The developer made a new public park at the fraction of the expense it normally would have cost the city, and the cost was covered with the public who will be enjoying its use.