Community Development

Urban parks and green spaces are essential for communities. They protect public health by providing opportunities for physical activity and outdoor recreation reducing obesity and cardiovascular disease and improve mental health and psychological wellbeing through respite and social cohesion contributing to less depression, anxiety and stress. Parks have also been shown to improve health through violence-reduction. Parks provide environmental benefits by reducing pollution, mitigating urban heat islands, replenishing groundwater, preserving wildlife habitats, and buffering noise. There are also significant economic benefits of parks including increased property values, tax revenues, and tourism revenue, decreased medical costs, improved attractiveness of communities to homebuyers and businesses, and decreased stormwater treatment costs. California has the highest economic impact of local parks at $21 billion in terms of transactions and jobs. Despite these critical physical, social-emotional, and cognitive benefits of outdoor recreation, Long Beach is relatively park poor, especially in low-income communities of color.

For generations, residential segregation, racially biased planning decisions, discriminatory post-WWII home loan practices, exclusionary zoning, racial covenants, and redlining have led to park and green space inequities unfairly affecting low-income communities of color. According to a study by the Center for American Progress, communities of color are 3 times more likely than white communities to live in in nature-deprived places and 70% of low-income communities across the country live in nature-deprived areas. In Los Angeles County, 56% of African Americans and 50% of Latinos reside in cities or communities with less park space per capita compared to 27% of Whites. This is a direct result of systemic and institutionalized racism, which subjected Black and Latino communities to disproportionately suffer the health, social and environmental consequences associated with lack of access to parks and open space.

In Long Beach, green space such as Drake Park, Lincoln Park, and Bluff Park was originally developed in the early 1900s in affluent white neighborhoods through donated or municipally owned land. As the city expanded north and east in the 1940s and 50s, open space was purposely set aside for parks like Whaley, Scherer and Los Altos parks for wealthier, white homeowners. During this time redlining, racial covenants, and discriminatory home loan practices concentrated people of color in older parts of Long Beach, which were developed for more commercial and industrial uses and left with less park space, open space, and tree-lined streets. As the decades passed, exclusionary zoning and racially biased planning decisions led to Central, West, and North Long Beach becoming more park poor with higher concentrations of people having less access to parks and open space.

The Trust for Public Land gave Long Beach a ParkScore Index of 48.8 points of 100 in terms of acreage, access, investment, amenities, and equity, placing it at 61 of 100 most populated cities in the United States. Long Beach scores below average on median park size, investment and financial health of a city’s park system, and playgrounds. Residents living in neighborhoods of color have access to 91% less nearby park space than those living in white neighborhoods and those living in lower-income neighborhoods have access to 90% less nearby park space than those in higher-income neighborhoods. Further compounding access to park space is the fact that the parks serving low-income households are four times smaller yet serve four times more people per acre than parks serving high-income households.

Parks and open space provide social, physical, and mental health benefits not realized by a huge portion of the city because of lack of park equity and access. The highest concentration of those identifying as Hispanic/Latino and Black/African American are located in Central, West, and North Long Beach, where the highest levels of social vulnerability and extreme heat vulnerability and the least amount park space coincide (1.5 acres of park space per 1,000 people compared to 5.1-16.3 in wealthier, white areas of East Long Beach). These areas also have the highest percentage of children under age 10 and a life expectancy of 8 years less than those living in East Long Beach. Communities with less park space have higher rates of increased risk and premature mortality from cardiovascular disease and diabetes and higher prevalence of obesity and chronic illness among children, which are disproportionately experienced by Black and Latino populations. According to the Long Beach Community Health Assessment, the Black or African American community in Long Beach has the highest rates of hospitalization for heart disease, diabetes, and asthma compared to other races/ethnicities. Every dollar spent on creating and maintaining park trails for physical activity can save almost three dollars in health care alone , a benefit not realized in these under-resourced communities. Furthermore, children living in these areas of Long Beach depend on public recreation as they are less likely to have yards in the higher density zones concentrated in Central, West, and North Long Beach or access to fee-based recreational facilities such as El Dorado Park or Belmont Plaza Pool. Investing in parks and open space, especially in the lower-income communities of color of Central, East, and North Long Beach is essential to improve our City’s overall health, economy, and climate resilience.

The City’s current OSRE was adopted over 20 years ago in 2002. Our communities’ needs have evolved over time, and we need a policy document to reflect these changes. Moreover, Senate Bill 1425 requires every City to update their OSR Element by January 1, 2026, which includes special requirements to integrate social, economic, and racial equity into the Element correlated with environmental justice policies, including climate resilience and other co-benefits of open space, such as safety. The Long Beach Climate Action Plan calls to enhance and expand green space, particularly parks and green space in communities most vulnerable to extreme heat and air quality climate impacts. Lastly, Mayor Rex Richardson called for the update in his Opportunity Beach agenda highlighting park equity, air quality and access to park programming. We will be working closely with our partners in the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department to execute the updates to this plan.

The OSRE ensures that cities have spaces that are dedicated for “recreation, health, habitat, biodiversity, wildlife conservation aesthetics, economy, climate change mitigation and adaptation, flood risk reduction, managed natural resources production, agricultural production, or protection from hazardous conditions”. The OSRE overlaps with the Conservation Element but includes more detailed information regarding development standards and policies for open space and recreation.

The project has nine (9) overarching goals that will drive the update process. They are:

1. Conduct robust and inclusive outreach that transparently engages, educates, and empowers stakeholders and community members to provide meaningful input.
2. Develop an open space standard that accounts for accessibility to all residents and community members, the qualitative and quantitative value of parks, and the importance of park location and acreage, and integrates open space metrics through an equity lens. A starting point for a new standard would include that all residents in the City have a park no more than a 10-minute walk (half-mile) from their place of residence. 
3. Facilitate greater park equity by identifying opportunities and strategies for the acquisition and development of new open space and equitable community outreach.
4. Establish an environmentally sustainable, accessible, attractive, and resilient open space network that promotes health equity, protection of natural resources, carbon sequestration, improved air quality, increases biodiversity, storm water management, urban heat island mitigation, and other environmental and social co-benefits for holistic mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
5. Identify and develop strategic and consistent policies for open space maintenance, programming, and natural resource stewardship that align with the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine’s (PRM) Strategic Plan and the City’s operational and financial capacity. Recognize and balance the need for new parks and open space with the existing acute need and resource limitations related to maintenance and upgrades at existing parks.
6. Promote public activation, recreation, and safety such that all residents and community members utilize the City’s open spaces to foster creative, cultural, civic, and educative connections. 
7. Identify and leverage technology and innovative financial strategies to support municipal open space services, infrastructure, and facilities.
8. Align the OSR Element Update with existing plans and policies including, but not limited to, the Land Use Element, Long Beach Climate Action Plan, and PRM Strategic Plan. 
9. Establish guidance on a governance and implementation structure such that key implementing departments — PRM, Public Works, and Community Development — can effectively and efficiently provide services and collaborate.

Parks, Recreation, and Marine (PRM) created a Strategic Plan adopted in 2022 to ensure climate resiliency and adaption, mitigate air pollution, reduce the urban heat island, and protect public infrastructure while promoting community health and park equity. This along with the Open Space and Recreation (OSR) Element will guide the creation, development, and preservation of parks and open space. By investing in all communities and opening communication channels with those who are underrepresented or were historically excluded from these past conversations, the PRM Strategic Plan and OSR Element aim to end systemic racism in the City.

Together the OSR and PRM Strategic Plan will help shape the future of parks and open space to promote park equity and ensure these low-income communities of color who have been burdened with negative health outcomes, environmental hazards, and disinvestment due in part to lack of green open space have a chance at a healthier, more sustainable future.

A General Plan is a broad, long-range policy document that guides the evolution of a city and establishes the goals and policies related to the future and vision of the community. It is the local government’s long-term blueprint for future development. In California, cities and counties are required by State law to have a General Plan, and it must accommodate the required amount of projected population growth the State of California estimates for each city. Read more about what General Plans.

Once the community needs assessment, internal and external engagements, and technical analyses are complete, the final element will be assembled. It will include updated maps, inventories, and policies incorporating the input from City staff and the public. This document will be presented to the Planning Commission and City Council for final adoption.

Planners and other City staff can begin using the document by incorporating new standards into their projects, working on existing parks and open spaces, or implementing new strategies and policies that arose through the update process.

The best way to get involved is to attend our community engagement events and to spread the word to your friends, family, and neighbors who live in Long Beach to attend as well. You can also follow along on social media to see when new events are being hosted.