Kate Rose Catanese says it was serendipity that brought her and fellow West Parker Donaldson Hill together to forge a grassroots neighborhood effort to improve Impett Park.
Impett Park is a regularly-used city green space in West Park, a neighborhood on Cleveland’s far west side, that includes tennis courts and an outdoor swimming pool. Its playground equipment is adequate but has not been updated for a long time. The large, quiet park includes a much-loved woodsy area that dates back to the private ownership of the land – Bessie Impett owned a 35-acre farm there until the city purchased the land after her death in 1950. The open grass and baseball diamonds are used by Irish football leagues and other sports as a home base.
Both Catanese and Hill had each long desired to see improvements at Impett, but it took the Covid pandemic and quarantine to allow time to explore, research, and join together in the effort. Changes to the park are still in the planning stages, but this community is discovering how getting involved and listening to each other are moving the effort forward. Along the way, they’re learning about how parks in the city are funded and how grassroots action can play a major role in that process.
Inspired residents find each other
Catanese used her online research skills to glean information on how neighboring communities spearheaded park projects, and she reached out to some of key planners in those efforts. She started by contacting people she knew, such as Angela Yeager, who had been involved in the community input process for renovating Lakewood Park and Nora Kelley, an attorney, organizer, and West Park resident.
She reached out to others by email, including Peggy Spaeth (co-chair of Friends of Lower Lake and the Bradford Pollinator Pathway and other efforts), Rachael Sommer (one of the founding members of Friends of Jefferson Park), and Beverly Wurm (of Friends of Clark Field). “I’m grateful that they were accessible and willing to share their wealth of knowledge through phone conversations, email, and personal meetings,” Catanese said.
When she was doing her research, Catanese also found a surprise: When researching possible names for the Impett effort, she discovered that the name “Friends of Impett Park” had been in existence since 2011.
Donaldson Hill founded the Friends of Impett Park group on Facebook soon after moving to West Park. As an inspired new resident, he envisioned improvements to Impett but he didn’t know the community well yet. He found the complexities of city government challenging. It was more than a one-person job, he decided. He let Friends of Impett Park simmer on the back burner for over a decade.
The dormant Facebook page was Catanese and Hill’s first point of contact. Buoyed by the sharing of ideas, Catanese and Hill enlisted the help of Council Member Charles Slife and Rosemary Mudry, executive director of the West Park Kamm’s Neighborhood Development (WPKND) group. Both were interested in improving Impett, and a band of interested neighbors and friends joined in as well. Street signs and flyers papered light poles within a half mile of the park. Facebook pages of West Park neighborhood groups and word of mouth all announced a “bring your own chair” kick-off meeting in the park on Sept. 8, 2022.
Collecting resident input
At the well-attended meeting of almost 150 people, attendees had the chance to offer opinions about improving Impett, which were informally collected on large posters. Attendees and the group’s Facebook followers were encouraged to take an online poll accessed by a QR code to enter further information about themselves and their ideas for an improved park space. Information was collected until Sept. 22 and collated by Catanese.
Nearly 140 residents completed the poll. In the multiple choice portion, 50% or more cited a desire for these certain key improvements:
- 67% Park beautification (gardening, weeding, litter clean-up)
- 55% Environmental preservation and sustainability of tree canopies and forest
- 54% Advocating for and collaborating with the city on improvements to park amenities and facilities
- 53% Park safety
- 52% Activities for families and children
In the open-ended part of the survey, where residents could type in their own answers, 26% of respondents mentioned wanting improvements to the playground, which helped the Friends to identify this as a priority in future plans.
Partnership with the city of Cleveland
Ward 17’s Council Member, Charles Slife, a regular user of Impett with his young family, thoroughly backed Friends of Impett Park’s efforts and enlisted Cleveland City Hall to send representatives to attend the Sept. 8 meeting. Attend they did: Mayor Justin Bibb and several of the city’s department heads not only attended but made a declaration at the meeting to bring the city’s help to the community.
“Mayor Bibb already had a plan in mind to use the power of parks to strengthen Cleveland’s neighborhoods by adopting a program similar to one used in other cities,” Slife told The Land, referring to Bibb’s plan to make Cleveland a “15-minute city.” (A 15-minute city is an urban design in which everything a resident needs is available within 15 minutes by foot, bike, or public transportation.)
On Dec. 7, Catanese, Hill, Slife, and Mudry met at City Hall with members of the city’s office of capital projects to discuss plans for park enhancements. During the meeting, which Catanese described on the Friends of Impett Park Facebook page as “very productive and encouraging,” city officials said the city is selecting a parks and recreation consultant who will generate a 15-year master plan for parks and recreation. However, the master plan, though it will include community input, “will not address specific elements of specific parks, so we were told that we should MOVE FORWARD developing our own master plan for Impett,” Catanese told the Friends Facebook group.
The city’s Division of Architecture and Site Development “will survey the land and develop a grading plan for the perimeter pathway to avoid flooding,” Catanese said, and Slife said he would make a formal request to begin this survey. “There is also the potential for landscaping for rain gardens to absorb stormwater runoff which will also assist in flooding issues. They have the expertise to design this,” she said. Catanese also plans to seek a small grant “to plant a rain/pollinator/native garden,” which the city landscape architects will help determine a site for, as well as where to place seating in the park.
Who pays for it all?
Slife said the city approaches parks with an eye towards fairness; after evaluating a category of amenities citywide – say, playgrounds – the city will then prioritize improvements with a “worst first” approach. Then, after determining which amenities are most in need of replacement, the city aims for similar dollar investments so that one neighborhood is not getting a fancier playground than another. However, he says ongoing community engagement such as what Hill and Catanese envision for the Friends of Impett Park can help by telling the city what residents want and influencing how those dollars are spent.
While the hope at Impett Park is that the city will contribute funding for large-ticket items like infrastructure improvements, residents will need to pitch in with sweat equity (such as planting and some maintenance) and fundraising from the community as well as seeking private funding (such as grants) to pay for additional wish list items. In other words, if residents want amenities above and beyond the typical city spending, they’ll have to find a way to supplement city dollars.
The Friends of Impett announced on their Facebook page that they have their eye on large projects that would need a combination of city and private funding, including:
- Updating and adding to playground equipment
- Establishing a walking path around the perimeter of the park
- Pool area improvements – possible addition of a splash pad
- Good management of the wooded wetland area
- Possible formation of a natural entertainment area
- Regularly scheduled open hours of the concession stand, perhaps manned by volunteers
- A possible theme for Impett Park unique to its history of being farmland well into the 1940s. (The old farm had fruit trees, livestock, a cider press, a foot-tread grindstone, and a windmill to pump water; the Friends wonder whether this history could inspire portions of the design for the park improvements.)
What’s next
The Friends of Impett Park has set a monthly meeting schedule for the first five months of 2023, each focused on a different part of the visioning and planning for the park. The Jan. 19 meeting focused on planting, creating a biodiverse greenspace, and managing stormwater; a speaker from the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District attended. February’s topic will be Trees and Woods Stewardship.
Looking ahead to the March meeting on “Concessions and Restrooms,” Councilman Slife will contact Parks and Recreation to look at the RFP issued for a company to run these entities at Zone Recreation Center and to explore whether something similar could be done at Impett.
Playgrounds are on the agenda for April, and the Friends are encouraging residents to build a wish list. “We will design the playground of our dreams and figure out how we will fund it once we know how much it will cost,” Catanese posted in the Friends Facebook group.
It’s no surprise that money is the biggest concern. Even with a small army ready to pitch in, the cost of improvements is still an unknown factor. But this community group, piloted by Catanese and Hill, is determined to seek out private grants and funding sources as needed to move forward with some of the smaller projects while the city works out funding for larger improvements.
Susan Eyerman was a participant in The Land’s community journalism program.
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