Image 1. Visualization of OMA+OLIN’s design for the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C. Image courtesy of OMA+OLIN.
Image 2. Map showing how the planned 11th street bridge design by OMA+OLIN will join the two sides of the Anacostia River, between Ward 6 on the west side and Wards 7 and 8 on the east side. Image courtesy of OMA+OLIN.
What is the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan?
What can urban park designers do to make parks a site of equity rather than a source of inequality? The Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan in Washington, D.C., offers an answer.
The Building Bridges Across the River (BBAR), a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., noticed that poor, minority communities on the east side of the Anacostia River desperately needed higher paying jobs, accessible recreational programs, and affordable housing. They designed the 11th Street Bridge Park (Bridge Park) to address the current socioeconomic disparities facing African-American residents living in Anacostia, Wards 7 and 8, and provide development that will benefit people of all ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses.
Bridge Park emerged from a collaboration with local residents, non-profits, architects, agencies, business owners and government officials that began in 2015. BBAR created the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan to identify the critical housing, economic, and cultural needs of traditionally marginalized communities in Southeast D.C. and outline strategies to address those needs before, during, and after the Bridge Park construction. From the very start, the voices of residents from Anacostia, Capitol Hill, and Wards 7 and 8 led the planning and design of Bridge Park.
What are the issues that minority communities in Southeast D.C. face?
When the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan was being developed, BBAR highlighted the housing discrimination and low employment rates in Wards 7 and 8. As a result of historic economic, racial, and geographic segregation, Wards 7 and 8 have low homeownership, high poverty and high unemployment rates. These disparities are evident between Anacostia and Capitol Hill on the east and west side of the Anacostia River, respectively.
In the past fifteen years, the Capitol Hill Riverfront has developed into a thriving mixed-use district, while Anacostia has remained largely undeveloped. Currently, the unemployment rate in Anacostia, which is predominantly African-American, is more than 20 percent. Unemployment in Capitol Hill, which is predominantly white, hovers around 7 percent. BBAR and city leaders anticipate that Bridge Park will help unify and connect Capitol Hill and Anacostia.
Image 3. Visualization of OMA+OLIN’s design for the 11th Street Bridge Park, showing the ramp’s connection to the river below the bridge. Image courtesy of OMA+OLIN.
Image 4. Map of Anacostia River currently, Screenshot from the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan. Image courtesy of BBAR.
How was Bridge Park designed?
The input of existing residents played an important role in developing the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan. From 2015 to 2017, BBAR held several public meetings to brainstorm ideas for Bridge Park’s design. The design by the landscape architect firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and Olin was eventually chosen (Image 1 and 3). As the city prepares to start the park’s construction in 2023, Wards 7 and 8 residents’ needs are at the forefront. For example, BBAR has partnered with the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, affordable housing developers, and other community organizers to create community land trusts, non-profit organizations that provide affordable housing opportunities to low-income families. In this way, current residents will not have to worry about being displaced by the park.
How will Bridge Park fix current socioeconomic disparities in Anacostia and Wards 7 and 8?
The Bridge Park will promote equitable and inclusive economic growth for communities on the east of the Anacostia River that have been long excluded from the city’s economic growth. To reach this goal, BBAR has made plans to give jobs to residents during and after the park’s construction. The First Source Agreement, negotiated by BBAR with the D.C. Government and local workforce development organizations, ensures that residents of Ward 7 and 8 have priority for new jobs created by community development programs that pay a living wage.
Bridge Park will be a site for recreation, environmental education, and the arts, featuring events by DC-area artists, humanities practitioners, and entrepreneurs. These events will celebrate the history and culture of surrounding communities and spotlight African-American narratives.
How is Bridge Park meant to be more than a park?
BBAR envisions Bridge Park to not only be a public park but part of a large ongoing effort to create inclusive and equitable development in Southeast D.C. Bridge Park will offer new educational, workforce, and homeownership opportunities. For example, BBAR plans to make Bridge Park an outdoor classroom to facilitate youth outreach, as well as partner with the D.C. Government to provide job opportunities in construction, landscaping, operations and maintenance, technology, cleaning, catering, programming, media and public art.
The Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan is a successful strategy that a large network of local and national experts helped to develop. That makes Bridge Park a leading example of how public and private sectors can work together to develop a community-driven park design.
Cities like St. Louis, TX, and Los Angeles, CA, are already adopting the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan as a model for their development proposals.
How can urban park designers learn from the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan?
Here are some of the lessons BBAR and supporting community organizers learned from building the Bridge Park Equitable Development Plan:
- Learn from parks across the country with similar equity development goals
- Collect preliminary data on surrounding neighborhoods, such as current property values and poverty levels, to help inform planning decisions
- Hire local people and diverse voices throughout the planning and design process
- Continue to engage city agencies, national and local experts, business owners, community leaders and local residents after completing the project
- Set clear measurable goals and simultaneously track progress in meeting goals
- Build innovative initiatives that will provide opportunities for residents of all income levels and demographic backgrounds