Site planning guidelines provide a clear and consistent roadmap for designing new parks and recreation facilities, refreshing existing sites, and evaluating whether improvements are needed.

These guidelines ensure that parks across Los Angeles are not only functional and beautiful but also aligned with community expectations. In a city as large, diverse, and dynamic as Los Angeles, thoughtful site planning is essential to creating parks that serve a wide range of community needs while maximizing the potential of each unique site. These guidelines help establish consistent principles for design, connectivity, sustainability, and access, so that every site—regardless of size or location— supports a vibrant, inclusive, and resilient public space network.

How to Use the Site Planning Guidelines Throughout the Capital Life Cycle

Acquisition

Use the guidelines as a checklist to understand how well a site can currently be accessed and the relationship a site has with surrounding uses, including other public spaces.

Vision Planning

Use the guidelines as a checklist for vision plan development. Pay particular attention to guidelines that address specific site-based needs.

Design

Use the guidelines as a checklist for concept plan and design development. Pay particular attention to guidelines that address specific site-based needs.

Construction

Use the guidelines as a checklist for park and facility construction. Pay particular attention to the guidelines that address future-use adaptability and communal gathering spaces.

Operation

Site planning guidelines do not apply at this phase since decisions about site planning and design are made in previous phases.

Evaluation

Use the guidelines to periodically evaluate site conditions and determine whether the design holds up to the aspirations of the guidelines.

Site Planning Guidelines

The following site planning guidelines are meant to ensure that park and recreation facility sites are well integrated into their surroundings and provide the best experiences for visitors. They address overall design, site context, access and connectivity, wayfinding, and various zones of use within the site. The guidelines are intended to inform:

the development of framework and site plans;

the periodic evaluation of parks and recreation facilities to assess functionality and performance; and

the design of refreshed or new parks.

Many of the park classification pages have a diagram showing how the site planning guidelines apply to a prototypical park of that classification.