LYNN — Community members attended a virtual meeting with city leaders Monday to discuss the future of the city’s recreation and open spaces.
“Many of you have spent a lot of time in our parks… It’s a critical part of what the city does to give us opportunities to be healthy, to be safe, to have fun, to spend time with one another, and do things that bring us together and create our community in these public spaces,” Mayor Jared Nicholson said in the meeting. “We have been really excited to make some transformative investments.”
The meeting was one of the first opportunities community members had to share thoughts about how the city’s parks and open spaces should be used in the years to come as part of a seven-year Open Space and Recreation Plan.
The plan, which will be finalized early next year, will act as a guide for how Lynn can utilize open spaces to best fit the community’s current priorities and needs, as well as a tool to examine if spaces are compliant with current Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
The plan is also an important factor in the city’s ability to source grants from the Massachusetts Division of Conservation Services.
The previous Open Space and Recreation Plan was finalized in 2016, with goals including improving security and maintenance, improving the appearance and visual character, determining new community recreation sites, providing more access to elderly and disabled community members, allowing for more pedestrian access, increasing more water-based and forest-based recreation, and increasing the use of historic sites and districts.
Associate Planning Director Lauren Drago said the city still has work to do in terms of improving park maintenance and other concerns from 2016, but added that it has done well to create more green space. She cited Frederick Douglass Park as one of the city’s newest additions.
“We’ve added park space to the city,” Drago said. “I don’t think a lot of cities can say that.”
According to Olivia Messenger, a landscape designer at Activas, which is one of the city’s partners in the development of the plan, the updated OSRP will allow community members to have their voices heard as the city moves forward.
“The OSRP is an opportunity for you to provide some big-picture feedback and transformative ideas for the state of recreation in Lynn,” Messenger said.
The meeting featured live, interactive polling of around 30 participants. Many respondents said the city’s strengths are the variety of parks and open spaces. They highlighted that the city has both a wooded area, in Lynn Woods, and access to the waterfront. However, they said they had concerns around the maintenance and public-safety issues at the city’s parks.
ADA compliance was something that respondents said is critical to the future of the parks and open spaces in the city.
Lisa Tulipani was one of the community members who participated in the meeting. She said she was hopeful that the city would do more to accommodate disabled children like her son, who uses a wheelchair.
“Currently there are no Lynn parks that he can play in,” Tulipani said in the meeting. “I think a lot of times parks get labeled as inclusive… but when you show up at those ‘inclusive’ places, they are not.”
Tulipani said she hoped the city would do more to listen to the concerns of community members who are looking for the city to not only meet ADA requirements, but to exceed them, and make the parks not just accessible, but inclusive and enjoyable for all, especially children.
“That’s something that for the next seven years, and all the years to come, needs to be paid attention to,” Tulipani said.
Dany Acosta, who is blind, also said he would like to see parks become more accessible.
“I think an accessible park promotes health and a healthy lifestyle,” Acosta said. “It starts with being able to access those places that are disabling me… It is not my disability that disables me, but the things that are not made accessible to me.”
Jon Charwick, also of Activitas, said the city would use the feedback collected to help the creators of the newest OSRP.
The city’s online community-feedback survey became available in July and will be open until the end of the month at LynninCommon.com before it closes for the project planners to review feedback. The OSRP team will also be at the Lynnside Out event on Sept. 9.
“All feedback is great feedback in order for us to develop an updated plan that will suit the community as a whole for the next seven years,” Charwick said.
