CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

"The BYA (Berkeley Youth Alternatives) Community Garden Patch started as a modest idea, a small piece of land where children could grow food for their families and older youth could raise produce for sale. But this half-acre abandoned railroad right-of-way has become much more --- a place that provides physical resources and community services that help a diverse, working class neighborhood sustain itself."1

Throughout the United States and in the City of Seattle, business and community groups are taking on the responsibility for designing and implementing neighborhood improvement projects like the BYA Community Garden (Figure 1). With the assistance of groups like the Trust For Public Land, neighborhood groups across the country have developed creative open spaces such as community gardens and community designed playgrounds. One such project, the proposed Uhuru Garden in Watts Figure 1: BYA Community Garden (Los Angeles), features a community garden, market garden and horticultural teaching area for the Watts drug rehabilitation program, a recycling and composting area, herb garden and orchard, a demonstration garden featuring drought-tolerant species, and a community center.2 Other types of communitybased projects include neighborhood clean-ups, public art campaigns, tree plantings, and environmental projects. In an effort to eliminate graffiti, the South of the Dome (SODO) Business Association is developing a mural project along a busway in South Seattle. The development of these open spaces illustrates the range of citizens involved in improving their neighborhoods and places of business.

Projects like the BYA Community Garden Patch and Uhuru Garden inspire other neighborhood, community, and business groups to pose the question: How can my neighborhood get that? Like many design professionals involved in community design and neighborhood planning, I am frequently asked this compelling question. Until undertaking this thesis, I had a standard list of one to three matching fund and grant programs that assist neighborhoods with open space and improvement projects. As I became more involved in neighborhood planning throughout Seattle, I realized that my answer to this question was totally inadequate.

In an attempt to better serve the neighborhoods and business groups I was working with I posed the question: What are the options available to neighborhoods to design and develop open space and other projects? I discovered several handbook and resource guides such as The Better Community Catalog, developed by the Partners For Livable Places.3 Many of these sources include valuable descriptions of funding and implementation strategies. However, most simply list the addresses of funders and titles of useful sources. Neighborhood groups, as well as design professionals, need to have access to as many of the available funding and implementation strategies, as well as information about how to access these resources. This document provides insight into some of the funding and implementation resources available to neighborhoods in Seattle and around the country.

This thesis explores the options available to communities for implementation of open space strategies, plans, designs, and other neighborhood improvement projects. The research addresses the question, How can neighborhoods access the resources necessary to develop and construct open space and other community improvements? A vast amount of information exists regarding funding and implementation resources and goes beyond the scope of this thesis. The thesis research concentrates on local funding and implementation programs that promote community open space and neighborhood improvement projects. Local refers to programs available to Seattle-based neighborhood groups through local sources, the County, the City of Seattle, and other public/private partnerships. The research outlines resources available to community groups throughout the United States, however, the emphasis is on local programs.

1. Laura Lawson. "A Garden Grows a Community," Places, 9(3)m 1995. p. 47.

2. Russel Ferguson, ed. "Rethinking the Master Plan" in Urban Revisions: Current Projects for the Public Realm (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994). p. 160.

3. Partners For Livable Places. The Better Communities Catalog (Washington DC: Partners For Livable Places. 1989).