On June 30th at 6:30pm in the Mission High School Cafeteria, the Dolores Park Project Steering Committee and RPD will host the second Dolores Park community design workshop. During this session park users and neighbors will vote to determine the priorities of the project and then work in small groups to create conceptual plans for the rehabilitation of the park.
This second workshop follows the resounding success of the kickoff workshop held last night in the same location. Over 120 people came together to assess the current conditions of the park and brainstorm a comprehensive list of rehabilitation needs. As the RPD design team explained, this was the first step in a “co-design” process. Rather than follow the traditional route of presenting ideas and asking for input, co-designing starts with a blank page and asks the community to present ideas and create plans to give the designers direction.
In this spirit, Thursday’s meeting was opened by a team of project Steering Committee members–including Robert Brust of Dolores Park Works, Lisdsay Kefauver of Dolores Park Dogs, Peter Lewis of the Mission Dolores Neighborhood Association, Liz Martinez of Bi-Rite Market and Crystal Vann Wallstrom of the Mission Community Council. Supervisor Scott Wiener and Meredith Thomas, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Parks Council, then put the night’s work in the context of the community’s and the City’s long term efforts to improve Dolores Park.
To start the co-designing process, Steering Committee members led 12 groups on tours of different sectors of the park to assess current conditions. Then the entire group came back together for a 40 minute brainstorm. Dozens of diverse park users and neighbors shared their proposals. The result was community generated list and map of over 70 rehabilitation ideas. Importantly, some of the ideas were cautions against changing elements of the park that are beloved as they are.
At the second workshop on the 30th of June, participants will vote to prioritize this long list of rehabilitation ideas. This process will both help focus the project’s limited budget and distinguish between widely recognized problems that need to be addressed and items that aren’t “broken,” so don’t need to be “fixed.”
If you didn’t have the chance to join the workshop last night, please visit the project website and download the comment form at http://sfrecpark.org/doloresParkProject.aspx Just click on the “meeting materials” tab, download and fill out the form, and then email it to our project manager at Jacob.Gilchrist@sfgov.org
And please mark your calendars for Thursday, June 30 at 6:30 PM in the Mission High School Cafeteria (enter on the west side of Dolores St. just north of 18th St.) The entrance and facility are universally accessible, and the meeting will be bi-lingual English/Spanish.
For more information call or email Jake at 415-581-2561 Jacob.Gilchrist@sfgov.org