Park planning and design will

• Elevate public stewardship through transparent and engaging processes.
• Demonstrate design excellence, leadership, and park management 
• Involve professional planners and designers from start.
• Seek participatory process that leads to sound design decisions, not necessarily a consensus.
• Embrace other professional guidance and discussion
• Reconcile conflicting mandates through a clear understanding of resource values, park management goals, informed discussions.

This is important because

• We protect parks through design by reconciling conflicting mandates based on informed and innovative decision making.
• Design is stronger when we move from "We control" to "We are responsive"

Core design considerations are

• Invest in designer selection and peer review to insure high quality design and value.
• Integrate the public into the decision-making.
• Invest in research to inform design.
• Make design decisions drawing from solid research and site investigation.
• Understand the community - local, regional, national - who may be affected by the design.
• Avoid design by committee.

Outstanding Examples

TBD