Supervisors Fund Six New All-inclusive Playgrounds
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SAN JOSE - The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 today to fund pioneering all-inclusive playground projects in each of the County’s five supervisorial districts.
“To describe all-inclusive parks such as the Rotary PlayGarden in San Jose and the Magical Bridge Playground in Palo Alto as successes would be an understatement,” said Supervisor Joe Simitian, who, last year proposed setting aside $10 million in matching grants to build similar parks.
“It’s gratifying, and frankly, it’s just the right thing to do – to provide all-inclusive places to play and socialize,” Simitian said. “I’m so pleased that our County stepped up to help create more of these innovative playgrounds for all.”
With accessible and secure slides, tree houses, carousels and swings, as well as playhouses and retreat spaces that encourage imaginary play and quiet time, all-inclusive playgrounds support recreation and social interaction for people with autism, sensory challenges, cognitive, developmental and physical disabilities – as well as those without special needs.
“Families with and without disabilities drive for miles to experience these parks,” says Simitian, who in 2014, pushed for the County to fund the final $150,000 needed to build the Palo Alto Magical Bridge, one of the Bay Area’s first all-inclusive playgrounds. “This will give kids and families throughout the county the same opportunities in the communities where they live.”
More than 10,000 children in Santa Clara County have “major disabilities,” and over 20,000 take advantage of special education in schools. Additionally, about 35,000 County adults under age 65 have some form of disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet the vast majority of parks, and city and school playgrounds in the County are not fully accessible – or designed – for kids or parents with cognitive or physical challenges.
Truly inclusive playgrounds far surpass Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) minimum requirements, with smooth surfacing, and custom-designed climbing, sliding, swinging, and spinning zones that improve balance, spatial orientation, focus and motor skills. Outdoor play is the foundation for physical health as well as socio-emotional skills such as problem solving, communication, and sharing.
In addition to accessible play structures and other interactive spaces, inclusive playgrounds indulge the senses with rich, calming colors, and fanciful tactile and audio elements, such as the 24-string laser harp at Palo Alto Magical Bridge or the speakers at the Rotary PlayGarden that pipe in pilot and air traffic control chatter from nearby Mineta San Jose International Airport.
Schools, senior centers, and independent living providers bring their clients on buses to experience playgrounds that are uniquely accessible to children and adults of varying abilities. As a result, the County’s two inclusive parks are becoming overcrowded: Palo Alto Magical Bridge, for example, has up to 25,000 visitors a month.
“To have six more top of the line parks is terribly exciting. This is another example of the County’s leadership in accessibility,” says Karl Garcia, a county resident and member of the County’s All-Inclusive Playgrounds Grant (AIPG) Committee, which assessed grant proposals and made recommendations to the Supervisors.
“Parks and playgrounds are important ways to connect on a human level,” says Garcia, a Google employee and paraplegic who has used a manual wheelchair since a car accident 30 years ago. He has three daughters – none with special needs – and has frequented several nearby playgrounds. But he is largely kept on the sidelines by narrow pathways, tanbark and other surfaces that won’t accommodate his wheelchair.
“At Magical Bridge, everything is accessible,” says Garcia. “I’m able to get up to the top of the slide mound, or on the carousel, and my kids can push me around. I can get up next to them and push them. I can participate in the play rather than hovering off to the side, and that makes a huge difference.”
Inclusive playgrounds benefit more than kids and adults with disabilities, adds Garcia: “Everyone plays there. It’s an opportunity for interaction, which is so important, because then there is much less of the ‘other’ – abled or disabled. We need more than one or two of these playgrounds in a region. They create community.”
Seventeen applicants requested funding from the County. The AIPG Committee, made up of disability professionals and advocates, and a staff member from the County Parks and Recreation Department, recommended funding the six proposals deemed the most regionally-serving and “high-impact.”
“These projects are distributed throughout the county, and they really ‘move the needle’ in setting a new standard for playgrounds,” says Simitian, Chairman of the Finance and Government Operations Committee (FGOC), which voted in December to follow the Committee’s recommendations and refer the recommendations to the Board.
“With impact grants, significant sums that will move these projects forward, we’re doing something meaningful; with the possibility of generating additional interest throughout northern California, the state and the nation,” Simitian added.
“Congratulations to Santa Clara County leadership for their support and initiative to encourage development of equal-play parks that will serve and welcome families, regardless of abilities, to play side by side in a safe and welcoming environment,” said Julie Matsushima, Former President of the San Jose Rotary and founder of the Rotary PlayGarden. ”The process of developing all-inclusive parks in our County and beyond should be the standard, and not the exception.”
The Supervisors voted to allocate $8 million to fund up to half of the design and construction costs for six projects proposed by the cities of Morgan Hill, San Jose, Sunnyvale and Mountain View, as well as the Palo Alto Unified School District. The Board agreed to set aside the remaining $2 million in funds for a second round of applicants, or to be awarded to projects that were not fully funded. Half of the funding comes from the 2012 Measure A reserve and half from other County general fund sources.
The five city-led playground projects are estimated to cost between $2 million and $5 million each.
The Supervisors also supported one ‘reduced scope’ school project at Addison Elementary School in Palo Alto as a model to encourage other school districts to develop all-inclusive playgrounds.
Addison is currently undergoing major building renovations, and the County grant provides “a great opportunity to rethink our outdoor play space,” says Addison Principal Amanda Boyce.
“Traditional playgrounds have a proscribed way of playing that isn’t user-friendly for all kids.
“We’ve made so many great gains in education, one area that’s stagnant is playgrounds. It’s such an important and often overlooked part of education,” Boyce adds. “Social and emotional learning – conflict resolution, friendship, sharing – happen on the playground during lunch and recess. That’s what kids talk about when they go home. It’s very important that they have that access.”
Boyce has spent a lot of time at the Palo Alto Magical Bridge Playground with her own family. “My older child has had growth motor challenges, so it took longer to do things like climb the monkey bars,” she says. “What’s so inspirational about Magical Bridge is that it’s all inclusive, whether it’s sensory issues, or physical or cognitive abilities. There are just as many kids having fun climbing up the hill as going down the slide.”
Magical Bridge founder Olenka Villareal is one of the Bay Area’s early inclusive playground champions, motivated by the lack of safe and creative outdoor options for both her disabled and non-disabled daughters to have fun together. She found “ADA-compliant” parks that made minimal concessions to wheelchair users, but provided nothing for the 90 percent of disabled children with developmental or sensory challenges. She dreamed of a place “so magical, it would bridge the gap between those with and without disabilities in a seamless way.”
After years of research, planning, and fundraising, the Palo Alto Magical Bridge Playground opened in 2015. Villareal and two partners created the Magical Bridge Foundation to help other communities model inclusive playgrounds. The national spotlight has landed on their work, which is featured in the “Access + Ability” exhibition running through September 2018 at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City.
“In Mountain View, we truly believe that communities should be welcome and accessible, and this project embodies the notion of a community for all,” says Councilmember Ken Rosenberg. “The Magical Bridge Playground is the latest demonstration of how people and organizations can come together to positively impact the lives of everyone in a community.”
Simitian agrees: “There are all kinds of things that none of us can get done by ourselves, but that can be done if we take on the challenge collaboratively,” he says. “These grants show just how much we can do if we partner together. I hope this will inspire additional partnerships in the coming years.”
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