Park Classifications

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Regional Park: Large scale, central or other unique properties that draw users from the greater metro Atlanta area. These properties may have the ability to host large or smaller events such as concerts, festivals, and other events and are often destination points for visitors.

Community Park: Community parks serve a slightly broader area/population than neighborhood parks. The focus is more on meeting community-based recreational and social needs, as well as preserving unique landscapes and open spaces. Community Parks vary in size and function but typically are able to house a recreation center or recreational facilities, such as a swimming pool or athletic facilities, and programming on-site.

Neighborhood Park: Neighborhood parks are the basic units of the park system and serve a recreational and social purpose. The focus of neighborhood parks is on informal recreation and providing neighborhood residents with a local outlet for play and social activities. Neighborhood Parks do not typically have the capacity to house a recreation center on-site, but are able to provide amenities including, but not limited to, playgrounds, basketball courts, community gardens, etc.

Playlot: Usually smaller than a neighborhood park, playlots are generally an area of limited greenspace that provides 1-2 amenities such as a bench and/or a playground or simply provides a green lot/space for community members to gather.

Nature Preserve: Land set aside for preserving natural resources, historic landscapes, open space, and providing visual aesthetics/buffering. Provides passive-use opportunities such as low impact trail corridors with an emphasis on ecological stewardship and wildlife protection.

Green Spot: Formerly known as “garden parks,” green spots are medians, cul-de-sacs, small greenspaces, and building fronts that contain small patches of grass, plantings, planters, or trees and sometimes limited amenities such as a bench or interpretive signage. These spaces are typically too small to be considered programmable space and are often adopted by neighborhoods and other entities for care and maintenance.

Plaza: This property is often defined by its location or the purpose it serves. It includes hardscaped property that serves as a central meeting location and may include art or other designations.

Trail Corridor: Trails corridors can include low-impact trails, paved pathways, bike trails, etc. Trails vary in length and can connect to trails/pathways that extend beyond City of Atlanta boundaries. 

Special Facility: This classification covers a broad range of parks and recreation facilities oriented toward single/unique purposes that do not fall into other classification categories such as a nature center, historic site, event space, etc...

Park in Holding: This classification describes parcels/lots of land that Parks and Recreation owns whose classification may not have been determined at the current time, or that have either been decommissioned for the time being as a City of Atlanta Park maintained on a 10-Day cycle, or have yet to be commissioned as a City of Atlanta Park. Parks-in-holding are not classified by size.

 

 

 

           






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