To prioritize where RAP should invest first, each existing park and prospective park site in the universe of sites was assessed based on a set of criteria.These criteria are indicators of need for park investment across the City and cover topics from park need, park pressure, and conditions of park facilities as well as factors in social and environmental equity, resilience, and alignment with other City/County initiatives.
Evaluation Criteria and Weighting
The 24 criteria in the PNA prioritization framework acknowledge the role of parks as critical infrastructure not just for recreation but for addressing equity, resiliency, and other City/County priorities. Many criteria touch on several of these themes.
The criteria do not equally indicate the level of need in a community. To account for this, each criterion was given a weight based on input from the PNA Steering Committee–high, medium, or low. In the overall prioritization, the high weight criteria counted 3 times as much as the low weight criteria, and the medium weight criteria counted twice as much as the low weight criteria.
Relating Criteria to PNA Guidelines
RAP will use both the overall priority score as well as each existing or prospective park site’s scores on specific criteria to plan for the future. Because conditions vary from site to site, the specific criteria scores can help RAP identify the most critical guidelines and recommendations to focus on at each site. For example, the tree species composition criterion, which measures the percentage of a site’s tree canopy that is made up of native species, may lead RAP to focus on the guideline pertaining to native planting variety. See Guidelines.
Highest Weight
- Park Pressure
- Perceived Park Safety
- Climate Vulnerability
- Low Shade Cover
- Social Equity Score
- Park Conditions Assessment
- Measured Walkability
Medium Weight
- Metro Corridors
- Biodiversity and Habitat Conservation
- Lack of Private Open Space
- Extreme Heat Risk
- Capital Improvement Project History
- Criminalization Burden
Lowest Weight
- LA County PNA
- Water Quality Priority
- Infiltration and Recharge Opportunities
- Tree Species Composition
- Habitat Connectivity
- MyLA311 Requests
- Park Visitation
- Access to Community Priority Amenities
- Perceived Walkability
- Recreation Center Physical Condition
- Park Physical Condition
Legend
Criteria in the PNA prioritization are from data sources across different scales of measurement
