Cornell faculty and students will help the City of Ithaca assess and improve its parks as part of a new collaboration, the city announced in a recent statement.
The collaboration looks to assess and improve the current holdings, maintenance plan and governance structure of its parks – in what Gregg Houck, director of the Ithaca Youth Bureau, hopes will transform both the parks and their care.
“Most cities of our size manage their parks in a more strategic and cohesive way – Ithaca doesn’t yet have a unified vision,” Houck said in a statement.
“The scope and scale of the work Cornell is going to take on greatly expands our capacity to think long-term while we manage the day-to-day work of the city, so this partnership is incredibly valuable to us.”
Part of Cornell’s Memorandum of Understanding
The project is part of Cornell’s Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Ithaca. In 2023, Cornell committed a $4 million annual voluntary contribution through 2039, along with $100,000 each year to fund collaborations with faculty and students that benefit the city.
For 2026-27, the funds will support work from faculty and students to inventory the parks, create a proposed maintenance plan, and research and recommend new models of governance.
Work is already underway, with a team of students in landscape architecture surveying the parks and taking inventory – how much space is taken up by lawn, playing fields and concrete, for example, officials said.
“We want to look at how, through changes in maintenance and management, we can build the landscape value of the park system through a diversity of habitats, species and landscape types,” said Jamie Vanucchi, associate professor of landscape architecture and lead faculty for the project. “There’s so much potential, and it’s just really exciting to be a part of.”
Possible opportunities arise
Vanucchi said she sees opportunities to make the parks both lower maintenance and more dynamic and sustainable.
This could mean adding meadows and groves that don’t need to be mowed, which would reduce costs and labor as well as emissions, according to the statement.
Vanucchi and her students will also spend the summer listening to stakeholders, including park volunteers and other community members, and hope to find ways to build community through the process.
“This is an opportunity for citizen involvement and care, and caring for our public spaces, to me, is so central. It changes us as people; it changes us as a community,” Vanucchi said.
Listening and community engagement
Listening and community engagement will also be an emphasis for the other student team, led by Laurie Miller, associate teaching professor and co-lead on the project, according to the announcement.
Miller’s students will research governance structures in different cities, including the required staffing and budget, to recommend an appropriate size and scope for a new approach in Ithaca. Currently, maintenance for the parks is shared between the Ithaca Youth Bureau and the Department of Public Works, but Houck said the divided structure leads to gaps, especially when it comes to funding.
“That’s led to a significant amount of deferred maintenance across the entire system,” he said.
Miller’s students will continue to work into the fall and spring and culminate with a proposed plan to transition the governance of the parks, including strategies to build private and public partnerships and find more funding.
This article originally appeared on Ithaca Journal: New Cornell-Ithaca collaboration aims to transform city parks
Reporting by Utica Observer Dispatch / Ithaca Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Utica Observer Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
