Triangle Park Sustainability Overlay District

Triangle Park

Welcome to Triangle Park

History and Current Challenges:

Triangle Park is in the northwest corner of the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago. It is an approximately 2.5 acre park directly south of the Calvary Cemetery in Evanston and two blocks north of Howard Street in Rogers Park.

In the late 1940s after buildings along Juneway Terrace were torn down, the newly vacant land was turned into a neighborhood park. The park was initially under the ownership of the City of Chicago, but much of the maintenance of the park was led by nearby residents. Community members came together to build and install playground equipment, and originally called the park Juneway Terrace Baby Park. The park drew neighborhood mothers and their children as a family-friendly play place. Mothers would sign up in supervising shifts to ensure the safety of the children in the park (Chicago Park District).

Around the 1980s, a section of the park became a site for community gardening. The park’s name was changed from Juneway Terrace Baby Park to Triangle Park, corresponding with the shape of the lot. Upon the Chicago Park District acquiring leadership over the park in 2001, it was expanded by 1.7 acres (Chicago Park District). Active members of the neighborhood petitioned for the addition of a native plant and flower garden to further beautify the park’s landscape. In collaboration with the Chicago Parks District and the neighborhood-run Triangle Park Advisory Council, the Native Plants and Grasses Community Garden was added in 2007.

Today, much of Triangle Park’s historic family appeal has been lost. Although the park has several picnic tables, it no longer draws local children and parents. Data from the 2015 American Community Survey shows that the population of census tract 101, the tract in which Triangle Park falls, is comprised of around 10% children from 0-9 years old. That is lower than the Chicago average of 13% of residents being between the ages of 0 and 9. The shrinking population of families with young children partially explains the shift in usage of the park. Moreover, a look into U.S. Census data on 2015 income in the bordering census tracts shows that the median household income of homes surrounding the park is about $20,729 (see income plot below). This is significantly less than Chicago’s average household income of $48.522 (census.gov).It can be deduced that as the age demographics of the area became slightly older and the median household income declined, the child-friendly park was no longer a community necessity.

The original playground has been removed and replaced with wooden and metal outdoor fitness equipment.The fitness equipment was added during fall of 2010, purchased through a $10,000 grant from the Wisconsin based Mary Alphonse Bradley Fund (“Triangle Park - Rogers Park”). The project was planned in partnership with the Chicago Park District. It was part of a larger goal of the Triangle Park Advisory Council to increase neighborhood wellness and physical activity. Unfortunately, the fitness equipment is largely unused.

Park benches are scattered throughout the middle section of the park, but they have not been able to attract young picnickers as intended. Neighborhood residents have complained about the current park users being noisy while drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana on the park benches. Some neighbors speculate that the park is a site of gang activity in the area.

Another challenge facing Triangle Park is the lack of any bathroom facilities. Park users in need of a restroom have shown evidence of resorting to non-traditional ways of relieving themselves. An article published by DNA Info in the summer of 2015 brought slight comic relief to the neighborhood challenges posed by the lack of bathrooms in Triangle Park. The article, entitled “Without Toilets at Park, Nearby Lot Becomes Poopy Nightmare For Neighbors” explains that human feces had been frequently found between cars in the parking lot adjacent to the park for years (Rice). The parking lot is bordered on one side by a tall concrete wall that separates the neighborhood from the train tracks. A local resident who voluntarily cleaned trash in the area explained that the somewhat blocked off location of the parking a lot became a last resort toilet. For both #1 and #2. The resident deduced that some park users would squat between cars and use littered fast food wrappers in place of toilet paper.

Triangle Park Parking Lot

The park’s nearest non-residential restrooms belong to the assortment of restaurants along Howard Street or the slightly closer Howard Area Community Center. Park users would have to walk several blocks to these establishments in hopes of being granted access to their restrooms. At least one concerned resident contacted the local alderman’s office to notify them about the need for bathroom facilities in the park. The response was that such decisions were under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Park District. The staff member who oversaw the area around Triangle Park said that they would not install toilets at the park because it was supposedly too small and they thought it would be a liability because of reports of police responding to frequent illegal activity in the park (Rice).

Triangle Park is in need of a positive transformation. The combination of unappealing fitness equipment, lack of public restrooms, and the park benches being a hub for illegal activity can be viewed as serious challenges. Alternatively, these challenges can also be viewed as an indication of the need for positive planning measures for Triangle Park. For my final project, I will propose ways in which Triangle Park can be revitalized into a positive neighborhood site that attracts people of all ages. With a few improvements, the park could become a source of revenue for the community, education for people of all ages and a beacon for environmentalism.

Triangle Park as a Sustainability Overlay District

The character of Triangle Park has changed significantly since the park’s creation. It has undergone large shifts in both its physical landscape and in the people it attracts. Many of these changes can be attributed to the ways in which the surrounding neighborhood demographics have varied over the past several decades. Throughout all of these changes, one piece of Triangle Park has remained a constant source of positivity: its community gardens.

Since they were introduced to the park in the 1980s, the community gardens and the later added native plants gardens have remained active and have contributed to the beautification of the park (“Triangle Park - Rogers Park”). My proposed plan for Triangle Park seeks to develop the park into a hub for urban agriculture and garden education. This could aid the neighborhood residents in reclaiming the park as a welcome environment for people of all ages, and could transform Triangle Park from a site of drug and gang activity into a site of education, socialization and commerce.

While the existing community gardens are considered to be a part of the park, Hermitage Avenue separates them from the technical park boundaries. I recommend adding a row of community garden plots along the northeastern edge of the park. Some of the produce harvested from these plots could be used to create a community farmers’ market throughout the summer and fall months. This would foster entrepreneurship and collaboration amongst residents, and would draw more people within the neighborhood to purchase the produce. Furthermore, I suggest the creation of a community orchard to accompany the existing trees along the perimeter of the park. The community orchard could be managed by the Chicago Park District and local community groups, and could expand the potential for agricultural education.

To increase safety in the park and reduce the opportunity for drug and gang activity, I propose the following infrastructural improvements. First, there should be better lighting throughout the park. Currently there are a few streetlights lining the main sidewalk that runs through the center of the park. If the Park District invested in solar powered light structures, the addition of more light posts would be energy efficient and low maintenance. Because much of the complaints of suspicious activity have originated around the park benches, I think the benches should be less clustered together and each bench should be by a light source.

Additionally, it should go without saying that Triangle Park is in dire need of a bathroom facility. Because the park is small, it may be a stretch to install permanent restrooms, but there is space for several individual portable bathroom stalls on the west side of the park just south of the sidewalk. The combination of the portable stalls and solar powered lighting along the concrete wall adjacent to the parking lot would likely eliminate the frequency of public urination and defecation.

A recent publication by Alderman Joe Moore indicated the plans for a new bicycle path to connect Evanston, Rogers Park and Edgewater (Moore). A northern portion of the path is proposed to follow the sidewalk in the middle of Triangle Park. The addition of a bicycle path through the park could bring greater community awareness of the Triangle Park’s urban agriculture education projects. Users of the path would be welcome to partake in the community orchard and could contribute to word-of-mouth advertisement for the community gardens.

Proposed Changes

The 49th Ward, the ward in which Triangle Park lies, has funding for community led projects through their alderman Joe Moore. Each year, the alderman allots over $1 million to community led developments within the ward through the Participatory Budget 49 (Moore). Through a democratic process, interested neighborhood residents attend community meetings led by the alderman’s staff to determine a range of projects they would like to undertake. If the projects seem feasible and lie within the budget, the entire community votes for their favorite proposals. The project that garners the most votes is supported by the alderman and undertaken. I recommend proposing my plan for Triangle Park’s Sustainability Overlay District to the participatory budget committee to see if funds from PB49 can be allocated to the project. If the project is approved, funds from PB49 can also be put towards new signage around the park for the expanded community garden, the community orchard and the native plant beds.

I will measure the success of the project in several ways. First, I will look into the number of new Triange Park community garden members via the Chicago Park District website. Specifically, I will see how many of the gardeners are from the surrounding three census tracts. This will indicate whether the plot additions were in fact desired and supported by the local residents. I will also look into sales from the farmers’ market over the first two years. This information will be tracked throughout each season and will show if the market is growing and if the gardeners are expanding their agricultural skills. Lastly, I will track the level of interest in the community orchard over its first several years and survey the orchard members on their levels of satisfaction with the project. If there appears to be little to no growth or support of the urban agriculture projects after a three year period, I will start a new phase of collecting community feedback to see what could have been done better.

In spite of the area’s recent challenges, Triangle Park has a great potential for revitalization. By supporting and expanding existing urban agriculture projects, the park can shift from being a site for drug activity to being a site of sustainable growth and education. Funding from the ward’s participatory budget will support the proposed projects at no additional cost to local residents. Additionally, residents who partake in the community gardens and farmers’ market will have the ability to earn supplemental income through entrepreneurship. Ultimately, although the park is a mere 2.5 acres, if its space is appropriately planned, Triangle Park can become a beacon for sustainability in Rogers Park and the surrounding neighborhoods.

References

“Boundaries - Census Tracts - 2010 | City Of Chicago | Data Portal”. Chicago. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Feb. 2017.
Moore, Joe. “Alderman Joe Moore’S Introduction To PB49”. Ward 49. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2017.
Moore, Joe. “Community Meeting On Proposed New Bike Routes Set For Next Thursday”. Ward 49. N.p., 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.
“Population Estimates, July 1, 2016, (V2016)”. Census.gov. N.p., 2016. Web. 1 Mar. 2017.
Rice, Linze. “Without Toilets At Park, Nearby Lot Becomes Poopy Nightmare For Neighbors”. “Triangle Park | Chicago Park District”. Chicagoparkdistrict.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.
DNAinfo Chicago. N.p., 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.
“Triangle Park - Rogers Park”. Triangle Park. N.p., 2011. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.