Open Space Vision & Stewardship Plan

An ecologically-focused plan establishes strategies for managing over 6,000 acres of urban parklands and sets a resilient pathway for the next 20 years.

Denver’s parks and open spaces are municipal assets that support community health and ecosystem services, but they are facing multiple ecological stresses–including invasive species, impacts from recreation, encampments, climate change, and nearby development. To address these issues, the City & County of Denver Parks & Recreation Department (DPR) shifted its focus from individual parks and recreation to district-scale and ecosystem thinking. Based on an integrated city-wide ecosystem approach, Biohabitats developed a Vision Plan to help DPR manage its baseline park portfolio of existing urban open spaces, incorporate new open spaces, establish program components for implementation, and manage the properties adaptively.

Based on a robust six-month stakeholder engagement process, the plan established values, criteria, goals, strategies, and priority actions. Each goal is supported by measurable indicators based on observable changes such as restored acres, percent weed cover, presence or absence of signage, or level of recreation demand. Selected indicators have assigned values (e.g. >70% native plant community cover) that place a park into a management category, with Open Space parks scoring highest in ecological function and Traditional (i.e. recreation-focused) parks scoring lower. Each category is linked to specific guidance for planning, maintenance, and monitoring needs. Thresholds that trigger management intervention were also set for each indicator, so that monitoring results can be easily translated to annual work plans.

TAGS

• Analysis+Planning
• Assessment+Monitoring
• Policy, Program + System Support
• Climate Adaptation + Resilience
• Conservation