For this Faces & Places, we heard from Nicholas Dewar — a community activist behind the Glen Park Greenway. Read on to learn how this space became a trail home to California oak woodlands and other native species.
“The Glen Park Community Plan came out in 2012, and the primary recommendation was to do a Greenway. At the time the space was wild, I mean, completely unkempt.
Michael Rice, the (then) leader of the Glen Park Association, got the ball rolling on the project. Our first grant enabled us to get a landscape architecture firm that really understood public participation. We designed a public participatory planning process that lasted a long time.
By the end of 2015, the Association members agreed to the plan as it was, which was really very satisfying, and gave us a lot of political momentum.
The plan said to put in native plants, and allow people to move through the Greenway. The first project was planting a California Oak Woodland, the second one was to put in just over 500ft of trail, and the third, which started late last year, was to install a California native meadow.”
“Instead of being this sort of unkempt mess, this space is now a thing that people can use.”
“Instead of being this sort of unkempt mess, this space is now a thing that people can use. When we have work parties, people stop and tell us how much they like and appreciate the space.
If you want to get involved we depend on volunteers and have a monthly work party. We really want people to get into it. You can find out more at glenparkassociation.org
To others starting in community improvement, get community consensus on a plan, this has given us so much political clout when we want to get support from our supervisor. We’ve received funding three times, and it’s because they’re so confident everybody is behind it.
The other thing is, if you’ve got a piece of open space, not on a sidewalk, you can really go wild with the most important native plant in California, the Coast Live Oak. It provides so many ecosystem services!”