QLID Park Plans

In 2020 the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s Parks and Recreation created a fourth maintenance district to work towards creating a more equitable parks system. The district, in Kansas City’s lowest life expectancy zip codes – 64126, 64127, 64128, 64129, 64130, and 64132 – known as QLID (Quality of Life Investment District) is focused on park and building maintenance, forestry, and landscape improvement. In 2021, Parks and Recreation contracted with the Center for Neighborhoods to engage the communities where 38 of these parks are located to help identify the issues and develop strategies for further collaboration.

We want to thank our CFN Park Stewards – Leah Banks, K’li Johnson, Kathryn Persley, Theresa Thompson, Minister Gregg Wilson, and Cashe Wilson. Thank you to the AUPD student interns who dedicated much of their time to this project. And, finally, much gratitude to UMKC graduate Summer Collins for many hours of writing and editing the plans and to the project coordinator, Nadja Karpilow, for her time, energy, passion, and expertise.

The Center for Neighborhoods contracted with six neighborhood leaders – one to represent each zip code – along with AICP and CFN Cohort graduate Nadja Karpilow to create a Memorandum of Agreement with each neighborhood leader. These six CFN Park Stewards were tasked to attend culturally appropriate training sessions and six educational workshops focused on research, fact-finding, and assessment and strategy. Over a year, the Park Stewards visited each park, talked with neighborhood residents and leaders, took photos, and worked to create a “ParkCentric” Plan” (a term coined by CFN) specific to each QLID park. In 2022, the plans were presented to the Parks and Recreation Director and the Park Commissioners with the strong recommendation that they serve as a “living document” to be referenced as they make plans for the QLID parks.