Community-Driven Green Space Planning in Wilmington

1. Wilmington’s largest park, Wilmington Waterfront Park, is a 30-acre landscaped
area along Harry Bridges Boulevard, from Figueroa Street to Lagoon Avenue. During the Fall of 2022, I was a Program Manager at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI), where I developed and led a community-led outreach project to identify the desired park improvements from the community to ensure the long-term sustainability of this vital green space in an industrialized area. The park is intended to serve as a green space and sustainable haven for the community by attempting to offset the emissions from the industrialized core of the Port of Los Angeles, which operates the park. In partnership with the Office of City Council District 15, LANI met with Port officials, who expressed enthusiastic interest in adding amenities to the park in response to the community request for more sustainable investments, including adult fitness equipment, additional trees, and improving current turf areas to increase their usability for sports, picnics, and other recreation. As the Program Manager for this project, I designed and led a community engagement program to get direct feedback on these community-desired park improvements to ensure a community-led planning process.

2. I had a different vision for the project I wanted to take on and that I proposed in the LiS Winter Course in 2023. Unfortunately, graduate school, two fellowships, my capstone project, and my personal life took time from being able to make my envisioned project a reality. While I still hold out on the hope of being able to work on that initially proposed project one day, this Wilmington Harbor Park Outreach Project was one of the motivations for me to pursue the LiS certificate. I felt it fitting to present this project as my final leadership project for this certificate as I believe that it touches on all three elements of sustainability, environmental, economic, and social. The port of Los Angeles is the second largest in the country and increasingly is a significant economic power in the world of shipping and the overall Southern California regional economy. However, the Port is still a large polluter and its growing industrialized prowess has had a negative environmental and health impact on the Wilmington community, a predominantly Latino neighborhood. The park is quite literally one of three parks in the community and by far the largest. Its history is based on the community demanding that the Port do more to clean up the air that was harming so many Wilmington residents. Thus, I believe this project continues on that environmental justice trajectory and directly found ways to ensure community members were included and guiding in the planning process of how to improve the park and ensure its long term sustainability.

3. This outreach program captured 970 total park improvement surveys, 84% of which were Wilmington residents, and 95% of respondents were of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity. 59% of respondents use the park at least once a week, and 26% use the park daily. These numbers reflect that we directly targeted and reached a large number of Wilmington residents who rely on this park as their only access to green space and all of the environmental, mental and health benefits that provides.

4. The Port of Los Angeles and Council District 15 were the two main clients in this project. LANI received a grant from the Gilbert Foundation to be able to conduct this outreach project, but our starting point was meeting with the Port and CD-15. Further, I am proud of the innovation of this community outreach effort, as I was able to partner with a local nonprofit, LA Walks, and their “Promotoras” program. These 7 community members became vital direct community-embedded canvassers who were able to ensure that we got a high response rate on our surveys and received honest feedback from community residents on what they what long-term sustainable improvements they wanted to see in the park.

5. I was the project lead on this outreach program. I met with the council office and port and identified local stakeholders to reach out to. I met with a Congressional office and local community organizations to gain a lay of the community landscape. I designed and executed the outreach survey and designed all of the promotional material, including flyers in both English and Spanish. It was my idea to contract with these community members. I developed an outreach strategy by setting up their contracts. I used my community organizing background and further trained these community members to ensure that we met our outreach goals.

6. LANI submitted a final report to the Gilbert Foundation, the Port of Los Angeles, and CD-15. The latter two and LANI are seeking more funding to work on building out these community-chosen sustainable park improvements. I no longer work at LANI, although they work with my Capstone project client. I look forward to tracking this project further to see these improvements implemented. I developed great relationships in Wilmington because of this project and I plan to return often and contribute to the community however I can.