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Q&A
Athletic field permitting rule changes and ongoing access concerns
0:44:51
·
3 min
Council Member Krishnan and Parks Department representatives discuss recent changes to athletic field permitting rules and ongoing concerns about access to recreational spaces.
- Parks Department explains the rationale behind the 2024 rule changes, including addressing dominance of for-profit organizations
- Discussion on specific changes made to increase access for youth leagues and nonprofits
- Ongoing challenges with high demand for limited field space
- Acknowledgment of the need to open up more facilities to address the supply-demand imbalance
Shekar Krishnan
0:44:51
those facilities.
0:44:52
And then a couple more questions before I turn it over to my colleagues.
0:44:55
Just now going over to the, you know, second aspect of this hearing about permitting.
0:45:00
So what drove the Parks Department's desire to update the rules about athletic field permitting in 2024?
0:45:07
What was the reason for it?
Margaret Nelson
0:45:10
Thank you for the question.
0:45:11
I mean, I think both internally we saw ways that we could be improving the process.
0:45:18
We heard from folks about what their pain points and frustrations were.
0:45:22
And in general, we saw, you know, one of the drivers was to address the dominance of for profit organizations that often have greater resources to obtain permitted space, and so we were trying to provide more equity and fairer access.
0:45:36
And so in some of the rule changes, for example, for the first time creating a nonprofit category and then prioritizing that nonprofit category, we were for youth, we were trying to then create that greater equity and kind of community access.
Shekar Krishnan
0:45:51
And what specifically in the new rules was trying to address that dominance by for profit leagues and increase access for youth leagues and nonprofits?
0:46:01
What were some of those specific changes that were supposed to address that?
Margaret Nelson
0:46:05
Yeah.
0:46:05
So, again, I think that creating for the first time, splitting up the for profit and nonprofit, we also created in these rules a limit on the number of average hours that leagues could have return rights for.
0:46:25
So it doesn't mean that they can't apply for other hours, but it was limiting, starting to limit kind of their return rights, which then freed up other spaces for other newer groups.
0:46:35
I think also by restructuring the fees, it made it clearer and more likely that groups would not apply for space that they didn't really need.
0:46:44
So again, that also freed up space and time for other newer groups to come in.
Shekar Krishnan
0:46:48
And appreciating appreciating the intent of of the rules changes, are you all still hearing concerns about access?
0:46:55
Because I know, you know, we are I am in particular from, you know, organizations around the city at a number of levels.
0:47:01
I have to imagine that you all are getting them too.
0:47:03
Right?
Margaret Nelson
0:47:05
Yeah.
0:47:05
I think I think one of the benefits of the rule changes is that we've seen a decrease in permits denied.
0:47:16
So I think that's showing one of the changes that we are getting more people fields that they're asking for.
0:47:22
I think we have a finite number of fields, so there's always going to be kind of more demand than we have supply.
0:47:27
I think the other thing that the permit coordinators do very well is that when people apply and say they're a new organization, we really try to work with folks that maybe they can't get the exact field or the exact time they're asking for because somebody else has it.
0:47:41
We work with them to try to accommodate them in whatever way we can.
0:47:45
And I think we do an excellent job at that.
0:47:47
So sometimes people can't get everything that they want, but I think we do a very good job at trying to get time and trying to help them increase their time as if it's a new league that's growing.
Shekar Krishnan
0:47:57
Got it.
0:47:57
Okay.
0:47:58
We'll come back to that But again, it highlights, right, there's much more demand than there is supply.
0:48:03
When you open up school playgrounds or other facilities too, you can help address that demand that the current supply is not going to be able to address.
0:48:11
So these two issues really do go together, they're very important.
0:48:13
I will come back to that in a bit, but I now wanna turn it over to some of my colleagues to ask questions.
0:48:17
I know council member Riley had some questions.