Can parks transform a community? This Richmond nonprofit thinks so

RICHMOND — Parks have the power to heal. That’s the belief inspiring a local nonprofit dedicated to breathing new life into Richmond’s historically underserved Iron Triangle neighborhood.

Named for the three lines of train tracks that form it, the Iron Triangle is a one-square-mile section of Richmond that has undergone some major changes over the decades thanks in large part to the work of Pogo Park, a nonprofit led by founder and Executive Director Toody Maher.

Their vision is big but their approach is simple: transform a neighborhood by bringing the community into the design and development process, strengthening the feeling of ownership and care for the park, Maher said.

“People want to take care of it because they feel like it’s theirs and it’s their responsibility,” Maher said.

Through the Pogo Park approach, community pride is sparked and trickles out to other parts of the neighborhood where residents begin their own planting and beautification projects, Maher said.

The Pogo Park team, made up of many Iron Triangle natives, has been doing this work for nearly two decades, starting with the overhaul of Elm Playlot, a pocket park in the heart of the neighborhood once known for its violent crime and nightly drug deals.

Attempts by the city to improve the park never seemed to stick, Maher said. That’s when she partnered with concerned residents Tonie and Carmen Lee to galvanize the community to take matters into their own hands.

With the city’s OK, locals designed and built out a park that today acts as a gathering place, hosts weekly programming and welcomes children for lunches in the summer.

“Nothing had worked in this neighborhood, so they were willing to take a chance,” Maher said. “It turns out the way we did it, by involving the people from the neighborhood, tied the success of the park into improving people’s lives in such a big way.”

Backing Maher’s assertions is a 2023 study led by University of California, Berkeley Professor Jason Corburn, who directs the university’s Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Center for Global Healthy Cities and the joint Master of City Planning and Master of Public Health degree program.

Through conducting dozens of interviews, reviewing documents and surveys spanning more than a decade and collecting community observations, the team found that residents living near Elmwood Playlot felt substantially safer and more connected in their community following Pogo Park’s redevelopment of the site.

In addition to beautifying the park, the nonprofit employed local residents full time, paid others fair wages for their contribution to the project and became a trusted outlet for reporting concerns that ultimately resulted in a decrease in crime, according to the report.

“While Pogo Park is a work-in-progress and its transformation still on-going, this case suggests there may be lessons for other cities and communities around the world interested in transforming urban green space into a healing place,” the report read.

Eager to continue that change, the Pogo Park team has spent years duplicating their visioning process through the development of two projects: the Yellow Brick Road, a youth-initiated effort to create a designated safe route for kids to walk and bike home from school, and the Harbour-8 Park, a 1.5-acre plot of land bordering the southern boundary of the Iron Triangle.

Similar to Elm Playlot, Pogo Park built a miniature replica of their vision for the park, both of which are currently on display at Pogo Park headquarters. Life-sized models of each feature were then built on the actual site to help determine exact dimensions.

An architect, professional construction crew and in-house staff have since continued to collaborate on bringing the vision to life, Maher said.

Once fully built out, Harbour-8 Park will feature a rented picnic area with custom barbecue pits made in house, a mini playfield with turf and professional sports lighting, water and sand areas for sensory play, a tot-lot with hand-carved wooden climbing features, a 100-foot zipline made to look like an exploding volcano and an active play area with a towering jungle gym, trampolines, swings and merry-go-round.

Already mostly built on the site is Harbour Hall, a community center and private patio that will host programming and private events. The hall, supported by a $10 million grant, will also double as Contra Costa County’s first Community Resiliency Center during emergencies.

Most of the nearly $30 million needed to fund the park project has already been sourced through grants and donations, allowing the team to build what Maher called the “Ford Pinto” model of the park that’s expected to open this fall. That version swaps out the active play area for a three-foot play mound until additional funding can be raised to support the “Cadillac” model, Maher said.

In the future, Maher said the team plans to add a commercial kitchen to the site and dreams of operating an electric cable-car that would take people from the park to stops along the Yellow Brick Road.

“I love parks. I think they’re the most underutilized public spaces, a lot of times because they’re duds. But when a park works, really works at the highest level, it’s a transformational public space. It’s magic,” Maher said.

Meticulous thought and attention went into every piece of the park, from the angles of each bench to the professional basketball court style flooring in Harbour Hall, Maher said.

Additional support in the form of expertise at either low-rates or pro-bono has also been offered by people like Steve and Molly Batchelder, arborists behind SBCA Tree Consulting who’ve provided 15 years of consultation on tree care, and Jay Conners, a Richmond-based tile layer of more than 40 years who helped build the column signs that will greet visitors to the park.

“I’ve heard about it for years and years knowing Toody,” said Conners, a long-time friend of Maher. “I can’t say no to Toody.”

Thanks to the advocacy of Councilmember Jamelia Brown, the project also received a $3 million contribution from the city in June, cutting their funding gap in half.

For Brown, her support of Pogo Park and the new Harbour-8 park is personal, having grown up in the Iron Triangle. As an organization, Pogo Park represents “a model for community-led change,” whose work “brings life to places like Harbour-8 and Elm Playlot but also empowers local residents to take ownership of their neighborhoods,” Brown said in an email.

The success of Elm Playlot, which Brown has previously lauded as a place of refuge in Richmond, is proof that Pogo Park’s mission and community collaboration works. The project itself, she added, is another investment into the needed and deserved safety and joy of the local community, and further builds the organization’s legacy in the city, Brown said.

“What Ms. Toody and the Pogo Park team are doing is transformational. They’ve taken an overlooked stretch of land and turned it into an oasis of peace — a welcoming public space that reflects the creativity and resilience of the Iron Triangle,” Brown said in an email. “I grew up near these parks, and I want every child — including my own — to feel safe, seen, and celebrated in a space that reflects their worth.”