A L L A B I L I T I E S P L AYG R O U N D AT HEATHER FARM PARK
Development of the project to meet a perceived need of the community.
The vision for an all-abilities playground (AAP)
was borne over 9 years ago by one of the City of Walnut Creek’s Parks, Recreation and Open Space Commissioners (PROS), Sandi Jacobsen. Her overwhelming desire to create a space, where all children of varying abilities could come together and play, was recognized by City Council as an important amenity to the City of Walnut Creek’s park system. In fact, the City’s 2025 General Plan clearly states in “Goal 5 of chapter 3” to “Regularly assess specific user groups’ needs and abilities and to plan for accessible parks, playgrounds and trails.
The new playground supports a much better life for all who visit. There are definitely spaces, such as the climbing hills and spheres, which offer creative play, climbing wall, ladders and tubes that offer exercise, benches arranged to facilitate social connection, shade structures to offer weather protection and fencing that offers safety. The one item that truly tells the meaning behind this playground was in an email to City staff. A community member was visiting the playground with her two children and some neighbors. She mentioned in her email how much she and her children enjoyed the playground. She then told staff about the young boy using a walker. He wanted to climb the tall 6’-0” climbing hill, but could not. His parent tried to help him up, but he was unsuccessful. When other children who were climbing the hill saw this, they rushed over and helped him to climb the hill, marvel at his achievement, and then slide down with the rest of the children. The integration of able-bodied children mixed with disabled children, helping each other at play is one of the elemental reasons for creating this all-abilities playground. This is a true testament to the success thus far for this playground.
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All-Abilities Playground Master Plan KEY NOTES
6
7
3
2
7
15
5
1
ACCESSIBLE PARKING AND STRIPING
2
2-5 PLAY STRUCTURE
3
5-12 PLAY STRUCTURE
4
CONCRETE SEAT WALL
5
CONCRETE SPHERES
6
SYNTHETIC TURF CLIMBING HILLS
7
CONCRETE PAD AND PICNIC TABLES
8
SHADE STRUCTURE
9
DONOR WALL
10
ACCESSIBLE ENTRY RAMP
11
VINYL FENCE
12
EXISTING PLAYSTRUCTURE
13
ROCKING SHIP PLAY EQUIPMENT
14
BALANCE BEAM AND ROCK CLIMBER PLAY EQUIPMENT
15
JAX CLIMBER PLAY EQUIPMENT
16
PLAY HOUSE
17
SAND PLAY EQUIPMENT
18
RESILIENT SURFACE
19
DONOR BRICKS
PLANT PALETTE 1
ARBUTUS ‘MARINA’
2
EXISTING REDWOOD TREE
3
EXISTING ASH TREE
STRAWBERRY TREE
11 16
1
17 7
STIPA TENUISSIMA
4
MEXICAN FEATHER GRASS
8
PHORIUM ‘DUSKY CHIEF’
5
9
HYBRID FLAX
10 NATIVE MOW FREE BLENDED GRASS
6 18
5
6
SODDED LAWN
4
4 15
DWARF FESCUE
7
SODDED LAWN
19
13
14
15
7 14
6
2 15
3
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Use of alternate materials, practices, or funding that demonstrates a commitment to sustainability.
The All-Abilities Playground
at Heather Farm Park is actually a teardown of an existing old, 30,000 s.f. playground and the construction of a new state-of-the-art play facility. There are several unique features designed in this new playground that respond to challenges of site constraints, green materials and systems, as well as creating low maintenance practices.
Always important to the design of any park or facility is the inclusion of sustainable design and materials. As this was an existing site, we were limited in providing new amenities. Some of these amenities that are used are synthetic turf at the climbing hills for water-saving, low maintenance, and longevity, resilient surfacing throughout (made from recycled tires) for low maintenance and longevity, and low-flow irrigation for water-saving. Together all of these sustainable materials create a park that’s fun and inviting, low in maintenance, and also good for the environment.
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Unique or unusual accomplishments under adverse conditions that dictated the defined action.
This playground
was built on a nearly flat site. Though that helped with ADA compliance, it offered a challenge in and of itself for the creation of some changing topography. The decision was made to create rolling hills within the middle of the playground. These hills, not only offered separation from the 2-5 play structure and the 5-12 play structures, but they also offered a free-play area. Combined with colorful climbing spheres, children use their own creative abilities to roll and slide down the hills, hide behind the spheres, and play “king of the hill�. Another site challenge was the close proximity of the lake to the playground. Given this playground was for children, primarily ages 2-12 and with varying abilities, there was concern how to address safety from the lake. The Site Selection Committee (SSC) considered a variety of options, but the final decision was made to create a fence, along the walkway adjacent to the playground, which acted not only as a physical barrier but also had the look and feel of the farm-like vernacular at Heather Farm Park.
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Economic challenges that the community faced and the rationale of the option chosen.
The City Council not only recognized the im-
portance of this project, in 2010 they approved the necessary upgrades to all of the playground structures citywide. A total of $500,000 was approved to fund the upgrades citywide and $350,000 was approved to fund the new AAP. With this direction, the PROS commissioners approved staff’s request to form a Site Selection Committee (SSC) for the new AAP. The Committee was charged with developing the criteria in which to select the ideal location, comment on the design and provide feedback on the recommend amenities. Unfortunately, the staff soon found that the earmarked funds were not enough for this playground, and serve the needs of the community but also the needs of the regional area. The goal then was to raise awareness, and eventually more funding for the new playground. It was a challenge that the Walnut Creek Civic Pride Foundation (WCCPF), the County of Contra Costa, the East Bay Regional Park District, several Community Foundations, and the Community-at-large took to heart. All of these groups and individuals came together to provide fundraising through donor bricks, donor plaques, donor benches, donor equipment, and other assorted fundraising efforts. Through help from these partnerships, Contra Costa County contributed $490,000 for the Parkland In-Lieu funds, the Eastbay Bay Regional Park District approved the use of $350,000 of WW Funds, and the WCCPF raised over $370,000 in private donations. These groups were amazing and definitely stepped up to the challenge to raise the necessary funds for this special playground. In the end, the challenge was met, and surpassed everyone’s expectations.
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Creative use of municipal resources, equipment, labor, or funds that produced measurable benefits to the community.
During the design
of the playground, it was determined that additional parking would be needed to serve the demand of the existing community, and the potential for regional draw. A design was created to revise the existing parking lot to increase the parking spaces by over 30%. In addition, more ADA parking spaces were created for the additional disabled community that was anticipated to visit. The parking lot was sealed and re-striped as a part of the overall project by City street’s staff. City staff thought the visitor count would go up from the existing, but never anticipated what has happened since its grand opening. Buses of children have been arriving on a daily basis. Consistent occupancy varies from 50-60 during the morning hours to well over 150-200 in the afternoon hours during the week. On the weekends, the occupancy count only increases. Inclement weather doesn’t seem to deter visitors. Maintenance of this facility has improved due to better surfacing, sustainable irrigation, new and enhanced play structures, and low maintenance landscaping. In-ground trash receptacles have been conveniently placed around the playground so littering is at a minimum. Maintenance staff expects there will be a reduction of workload at this playground due to the materials that were incorporated into the design.
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Construction process that minimize the impact to the community and its residents during construction.
To assist in minimizing the impact to the community during the construction process, the design team elected to shorten the construction time to 4 months. It was originally assumed the construction duration would take approximately 6 months, but the contractor and the design team worked diligently to see that the timeframe was shortened. To do this, the contractor worked in the early hours during the summer months to accept large deliveries of materials and equipment and worked extended hours, thus minimizing the timeframe for the construction. The City also assisted the Contractor with deliveries, often arriving at the site as early as 5:00 am so that the activities in the adjacent park, tennis courts and community pool would not be affected by noise and equipment. This also minimized the impact on the adjacent heavily-used parking lot. Furthermore, the contractor’s storage area was moved to an asphalt area that, again, minimized the use of the parking lot.
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Demonstrate awareness of opportunities for enviromental preservation during the project and how they were incorporated in the project design and construction. Prior to the construction
of this new playground, there stood a 20+ year old playground with sand, fiber infill and decomposed granite surfacing, including six (6) non-compliant play structures. There were safety and ADA issues that required attention. The 30,000 s.f. playground was underutilized, tired and in need of repair. The City could have spent their dollars repairing and updating the facility to create compliance, but the fact remained that the playground space was highly underutilized and expensive to maintain. Heather Farm Park is a large 100 acre regional park with a community center, garden center, swim center, baseball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts, lakes, horse arena, skate park, and a dog park. Over 1.2 million visitors annually flock to this regional park, and the Community deserved a playground that could handle the population demand. Due to the size of the existing playground site (30,000 square feet), this offered City staff the ability to work within the existing large palette. No additional land was used to create the playground, leaving the existing open-space areas preserved and intact. The City was able to construct a colorful, playful, yet functional play area with an enhanced climbing wall, new and improved swings, a large 5-12 ramped structure, three (3) large play towers, ADA play equipment, a 2-5 structure, playhouse, sand lot, and climbing hills and spheres.
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Additional conditions deemed of importance to the public works agency, such as exceptional efforts to maintain quality control and, if value engineering is used, construction innovations as evidence by time and/or money-saving techniques developed and/or successfully utilized.
Almost everything
about this playground project was a partnership between public and private entities. From nearly the beginning, community resources were used to fund this project. The City was fortunate to partner with the WCCPF to fundraise a large portion of the costs of the playground. The WCCPF was instrumental in carrying out a donor brick fundraiser to have the community-at-large engaged in the process. They also created fundraisers for benches and equipment, as well as applying for large foundation grants. City staff was in constant communication with the WCCPF to ensure they had all the up-to-date information to inform their prospective donors.
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City staff hired a playground specialist, Brian Killian who
worked with the City Architect to develop the design of the playground. The SSC was also involved extensively on design elements which would best accommodate the special needs community and all of the children. During the design they also reached out to special needs educators and instructors from various local agencies. To engage the community staff brought displays and illustrations to the local farmers market and held a public meetings which requested feedback and comments. City Staff communicated with the WCCPF frequently. But, that was only a small part of the varied communication during the duration of the project from vision to reality. Through sources of internet media, newspapers, City Council meetings, flyers, and word-of-mouth, City staff kept the Community informed from the day it was proposed at City Council in 2013 until the day it saw its Grand Opening in October 2014. And it’s still not over. The overwhelming complimentary response from the community keeps pouring in on a weekly basis. Without the assistance of the Community, the County of Contra Costa, the East Bay Regional Park District, the donations from Foundations, and the Walnut Creek Civic Pride Foundation, this special playground would still only be a dream. Fortunately, they all stepped up and made this playground a reality.
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Please click on this link to view the fly-over video of the All-Abilities Playground
Thank you to Miracle Playsystems who made this video possible