By: Deborah Johnson Wood
The next installment of public meetings for Green Grand Rapids, an 18-month project to update the city’s master plan with an emphasis on green initiatives, will ask Grand Rapids residents to prioritize ideas on improving the city’s green spaces and waterways. City leaders will present attendees with the ideas gathered at its first Green Gathering meetings and through the Green Pursuits game distributed throughout the city last spring.
“The last Green Gathering had 225 citizens who identified issues and ideas they had for improving everything from parks, greening complete streets, creating bike lanes, farmers markets, and community gardens,” says Suzanne Schulz, Grand Rapids Director of Planning.
“This time people will need to prioritize what’s important, like whether to have designated bike lanes or shared-use roads. Designated bike lanes, in a lot of cases, will lose on-street parking, and we need people to understand that.”
Other ideas include using different areas of the Grand River for different activities, such as designating one area for rowing and canoeing, another area for kayaking or whitewater rafting.
Schulz says residents will be excited about the amount of information collected and the results of the Green Pursuits game, in which residents did their own mapping of ideas for the parks and waterways.
“Annis Water Resources Institute did a tree canopy analysis to look at the tree cover throughout the city, specifically along public streets,” Schulz adds. “What the public told us in Green Pursuits is the same as the findings of the scientific analysis—that there are certain key streets where we need more trees—like South Division and Michigan Street.”
Citizens, organizations and businesses are invited to Green Gathering: Choices, on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 6:30-8:30 p.m., at Alger Middle School, 921 Alger St. SE.
Source: Suzanne Schulz, City of Grand Rapids; Clare Wade, Clare Wade Communications
Related Articles
$500K Green Grand Rapids targets the riverfront, a landfill, and other public space
Grand Rapids' 'Green Pursuits' anything but trivial
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.