Neighbors Collaborate With City to Improve Holman Park

Holman Park in northeast Portland's Woodlawn neighborhood.

There is a small park at the base of Woodlawn Triangle in northeast Portland’s Woodlawn neighborhood. It is no bigger than a house lot. It has four benches, one very old play structure in its center, no picnic tables, and some trees.

It’s also got a lot of love from the people living nearby.

“It’s really become a center of our community,” says Briana Winterborn, who lives three houses away.

“It's everyone's collective backyard,” agrees Gregg Lavender. “I've seen all these relationships be born and blossom. It’s really changed the feel of the neighborhood.”

For the last four years, as many as 80 Woodlawn residents have collaborated to improve the park. Neighbors painted the benches, and they have held a monthly potluck for the last two summers. They held a community charrette a couple years ago, and out of that came a collective desire to install lighting, benches, a new play structure, and maybe a fire pit.

Neighbor Stella Veretnik created a master plan for the park as part of a permaculture class she took. Her design incorporated what neighbors wanted and also included additional plants, shrubs and trees, a small community garden, even a small xylophone built into one wall.

“The neighbors feel really energized about the park,” Winterborn says. “It’s bringing neighbors together.”

Portland’s Parks Bureau does not have the budget to improve the park, but because of construction work by the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and Bureau of Environmental Services (BES), some changes are going to made.

PBOT will convert the section of NE Holman street along the park to a bike boulevard. This will reduce the street size by approximately 50%, expanding the park. BES will install two bioswales on NE Holman street and NE 13th for storm water management.

Lavender says neighbors started collaborating with those bureaus to see how neighbors interested in improving the park could piggyback on the construction.

Neighbors presented their vision for the park to the bureaus at a December community meeting. On February 23, the Parks Bureau, PBOT, and BES met again with neighbors to share their design.

The play structure will be removed, and a rain garden will be created. Trees will be planted along Holman street, and some unhealthy trees in the park will be removed; BES will plant new ones. Three berms will be installed to support native plants and provide seating. Some concrete will be repaired, and Parks will work with neighbors to create some artistic designs.

Much of the work “wasn't our original plan,” Lavender says.

There are no funds to install a play structure; more upsetting to neighbors is that there will be no lighting.

“In the summer, [the park] is full of kids, all the time,” says neighbor Alan Armstrong.

“People want it to be safe and comfortable for children,” Lavender says.

The ideas in Veretnik’s master plan were immediately dismissed because of funding constraints.

“The system is set in such a way that there is really no way to have a truthful and successful collaboration between neighborhoods and Parks,” Veretnik says with frustration. “I am happy that something is happening. But there is more potential.”

Lavender says he and his fellow neighbors share Veretnik’s disappointment, but are “really grateful for what the city is doing.”

The construction work and changes are expected to be completed by July. Lavender says he and other neighbors are already planning to “see what’s missing at that point, and provide what’s missing.”

It’s possible, he says, that Woodlawn will work with the Village Building Convergence and City Repair to build and install play structures, a kiosk, and benches. “This is the beginning of what our neighborhood is going to do at this park,” Lavender says.