Bertus Street Park

[StAndyBernard]

This may be relevant as well:

http://www.planetizen.com/node/44591

From the article:

Peter Harnik of the Trust for Public Land spoke recently about the challenges facing urban parks, and how they can be catalysts for revitalization and change when done correctly.

At a recent presentation at the National Building Museum, Harnik presented his strategies for carving innovative parks out dense cities:

"1. Buy the land. Harnik pointed to Boston?s Public Square and the Santa Fe Railway Park as examples of good investments made by local governments.

2. Use urban redevelopment. Portland?s Pearl District was cited as an example.

3. Turn part-time schoolyards into full-time parks. 'Ideally, these facilities should be in use 16 hours per day.'"

You can read all 14 of Harnik's recommendations at ASLA's The Dirt blog.

[thetick]

Man they really messed up......can hardly see the foul lines, put them in red or ornge instead of what most baseball fields use white lines.   Ran out of white ?

[dalmation]

  Coming soon - Library     - new houses

[Dogtown]

There are now surveying stakes at the park to show the size of the lots.

{Channeling Don Adams a/k/a 'Maxwell Smart'}:

"Ah, the old surveying-sticks-driven-into-the-ground-to make-it-seem-like-something-is-actually-going-to-be-built-on-that-vacant-lot-trick, eh?"

Where have I seen that done before, the deja vu is really strong on this, for some reason...?

[Don T.]

There are now surveying stakes at the park to show the size of the lots.

[dalmation]

now now your halo is tilting, no need for name calling -  and by the way the world is now digital not analog.

If you'd read any of my posts you'd know I think the tot lot does not serve the best interest of the neighborhood.

And no, I don't think you read your references. References from 1974 are not likely to be relevant to 2010 in regards to housing.  I think you just cut and pasted them from one of the UC studies.  I would give much more credence to a real estate agents listing -- they know what sells.   Academics have little or no real world experience.

Anything we get from UC take with a grain of salt.  They're not going to say or do anything to risk losing the money that St. Bernard sends them each year.  Dr. Romanos is far from unbiased when he is taking $$ from the city through the CIC.

[StAndyBernard]

Well now I know how parks affect values in Seoul, South Korea and in Donetsk, Ukraine.   Of course I'm not so sure how that affects our little burg here in St. Bernard, United States of America.  Despite our problems I don't remember us being included in any list of third world countries.

If you would take a little more time to actually read some of the references, you will find that small parks, the size of the tot lot, impact mostly those homes within 600 feet, and little to no impact on those beyond that.

How many small children live within 600 feet of the tot lot?  From your data, it would appear we have built a park that is not likely to be used.   Perhaps the answer can be found in one of the urban forest references.....  oh wait - we cut down the trees too didn't we?

You think I didn't read my own references? How would I have ever compiled a list of references without reading them?
Also, get it out of your thick head that places outside the US cannot be analogs for behavior here. Things behave quite a bit more similarly than you think.

[StAndyBernard]

So why build it if it's unlikely to be used?

Call me what you like, I'm just suggesting that maybe there is a better use for the site than a tot lot.

I'd also be fine with:

Houses
A passive park
A community facility of some sort
Any other use that isn't a waste of our tax money.

[Duped]

Dalmation,

You beat me to it.  St. Andy is obviuosly a mouthpiece for the man.

[dalmation]

Well now I know how parks affect values in Seoul, South Korea and in Donetsk, Ukraine.   Of course I'm not so sure how that affects our little burg here in St. Bernard, United States of America.  Despite our problems I don't remember us being included in any list of third world countries.

If you would take a little more time to actually read some of the references, you will find that small parks, the size of the tot lot, impact mostly those homes within 600 feet, and little to no impact on those beyond that.

How many small children live within 600 feet of the tot lot?  From your data, it would appear we have built a park that is not likely to be used.   Perhaps the answer can be found in one of the urban forest references.....  oh wait - we cut down the trees too didn't we?

[StAndyBernard]

Bueller?   Bueller?

No reply to my request for references so I take it you can't substantiate your claims about pocket parks.

I apologize for not posting in whatever time frame you think is best. I unfortunately don't use the computer everyday.

Here you go sir:
Anderson, Soren T. and Sarah E. West. 2006. Open space, residential property values, and spatial context. Regional Science and Urban Economics 36(6): 773-789. 


Bolitizer, B. and N. R. Neutsil. 2000. The impact of open spaces on property values in Portland, Oregon. Journal of Environmental Management 59 (3): 185-193. 


Buffington, Aaron J. 1999. An assessment of urban park values and residential properties utilizing GIS in Rochester, Minnesota. Resource Analysis Department, Saint Mary?s University of Minnesota. http://www.gis.smumn.edu/GradProjects/buff.PDF Internet; Accessed 10 February 2010.


Cheshire, Paul C. and Stephen C. Sheppard. 2002. ?The Welfare Economics of Land Use Planning.? Journal of Urban Economics 52(2) 242-269.


Crompton, J. L. 2005. ?The impact of parks on property values: empirical evidence from the past two decades in the United States.? Managing Leisure 10 (October): 203- 218.


Dunse, Neil and Michael White. 2007. Urban parks, open space and residential property values. Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. http://www.rics.org/site/download_feed.aspx?fileID=5728&fileExtension=PDF Internet; Accessed 5 February 2010.


Dula, Nicholas. 2008. Parks and Economic Development: The relationship between public amenities, quality of life and urban growth. Masters diss., University of North Carolina.


Dwyer, John F., George L. Peterson and Alexander J. Darragh. 1983. Estimating the value of urban forests using the travel cost method. Journal of Arboculture 9(7):182-185.


Espey, M. and K. Owusu-Edusei. 2001. Neighborhood parks and residential property values in Greenville, South Carolina, http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:uQzkoBk9a3MJ:mooreschool.sc.edu/export/moore/sccre/PDF/CAREER__Espey_Practitioners_version.pdf+author:%22Espey%22+intitle:%22Neighborhood+Parks+and+Residential+Property+Values+in+...%22+ Internet; Accessed 5 February 2010.


Geoghegan, J. 2002. The value of open spaces in residential land use. Land Use Policy. 19(1): 91-98.


Hendon, William. S. 1972. The park as a determinant of property values. The Real Estate Appraiser 38(5): 73-79. 


Kang, Chang Deok and Cervero, Robert. 2008. From Elevated Freeway to Linear Park: Land Price Impacts of Seoul, Korea?s CGC Project.  http://escholarship.org/uc/item/81r021w2 Internet; Accessed 5 February 2010.


Kryvobokov, Marko and Mats Wilhelmsson. 2007. Analysing Location Attributes with a Hedonic Model for Apartment Prices in Donetsk, Ukraine. International Journal of Strategic Property Management. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5397/is_200701/ai_n21293442/?tag=content;col1 Internet; Accessed 5 February 2010.


Lancaster, Kelvin. 1966. A new approach to consumer theory. Journal of Political Economy 74(2): 132?57. 


Mansfield, Carol, Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, William McDow, Robert McDonald, and Patrick Halpin. 2005. Shades of Green: Measuring the value of urban forests in the housing market. Journal of Forest Economics 11(3):177-199.


Nicholls, Sarah. 2004. Measuring the impact of parks on property values: new research shows that green spaces increase the value of nearby housing. Parks & Recreation. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1145/is_3_39/ai_n5994652/ Internet; Accessed 10 February 2010.


Rosen, Sherwin. 1974. Hedonic prices and implicit markets: product differentiation in pure competition. Journal of Political Economy 82(1): 34?55. 


Srour, Issam M., Kara M. Kockelmann and Travis P. Dunn. 2002. Accessibility Indicies: Connection to Residential Land Prices and Location Choices. Transporation Research Record. 2002:25-34.


Tse and Love. 2000. Measuring Residential Property Values in Hong Kong. Property Management 18(5):366-374.


Wolf, Kathleen. 2007. City Trees and Property Values. Arborist News. 18(2):22-27.

[dalmation]

Bueller?   Bueller?

No reply to my request for references so I take it you can't substantiate your claims about pocket parks.

[dalmation]

He said pocket parks can do that. But they don't always. He also described the pocket parks that work as passive, low activity, parks.

In-fact, if you do a little research, you'll find that pocket parks (made mostly of green space and passive equipment/building) can bring home prices up by more than 15%.

All of our parks are playgrounds, which have seen a negative correlation between them and home prices. Also, the parks give the most benefit to those houses that face the park.


Would you care to cite your references to your claims?  Or is this another "if you repeat it often enough it must be true"  quote?

[Don T.]

Hey Don,

What do you mean you have not heard anything?  You are a Council member.  How in the he*@ is anyone supposed to know what is going on if Council does not not know what is going on?

Good job.

I asked Bill tonight at Council the status of the park and he is having JMA layout the lots to show where the 4 houses will go. Then it will be discussed at a cow meeting.

[StAndyBernard]

Ladies and gentleman, introducing our new, young, professional family............................THE MAYOR'S DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!!

The major problem with your logic is that location of other families members can often trump other desires. You also can't address the availability of newer housing available else-where in the city that is cheap due to foreclosure.

I like that you try to straw-man the Mayor's argument by offering up the location decision of his own daughter. While that certainly makes for a great "story" to throw around, it doesn't address the problems that the mayor brought up.