MVCSP & GreenSpacesMV comment on the Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan agenda item to City of Mountain View City Council
Mountain View MVCSP
Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning and GreenSpacesMV
c/o Aaron Grossman
817 Montgomery Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
May 26, 2026
City of Mountain View City Council
City Hall, 500 Castro Street
PO Box 7540
Mountain View, CA 94039-7540
Re: Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan
Dear Mayor Ramos and City Council members:
The Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning (MVCSP) and GreenSpacesMV appreciate the opportunity to comment on this agenda item you will be discussing at your meeting on May 26th. We have reviewed the agenda item materials, and we have the following comments we would like to share with you. Note that we are aware some of what we're calling out here is covered in the plan draft now (which we appreciate), and we just want to ensure their inclusion in what gets adopted by you.
This plan has been some time coming, and we thank Staff and others for all of their work on it as we approach the finish line. This will be an essential plan in the City’s toolkit along with related plans such as the Active Transportation Plan (ATP) and Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan.
Understanding that agenda item 7.1 is intended for plan adoption, our focus in this letter is to highlight certain details we want the City to be mindful of as they move forward with putting it into play rather than creating additional work at this stage. That is, thinking primarily about where we go from here.
We urge you to consider all of the ways our parks are expected to be used by various communities. For example, our parks should reflect the needs of the neighborhoods they exist in. However, they should also be designed and maintained to serve the needs of the community at large and those traveling within and through Mountain View who are walking or biking. Think of the parks as being part of a network of parks and open space, not just standalone destinations.
While we like many elements of the draft plan, and appreciate all of the work that has gone into it, we would like to see it be stronger in respect to prioritization, budgets, owners, budget scenarios, and equity to help ensure we see tangible results from it over time. Equity is under-addressed, we feel, because projects are not clearly prioritized in the four areas that are dramatically underserved.
We encourage you to define the desired ratio of "natural" space (e.g., grass, bushes, trees) to "recreational" space (e.g., tennis courts, pickleball courts, playgrounds, picnic tables, BBQ grills) in existing parks and for consideration in future park planning, whether for new parks or renovations. Believing this balance is currently heavily tilted in favor of "recreational" space, we urge you to do what you can to prioritize including as many large trees and increased natural shade, for example, in all park designs and implementations.
The Active Transportation Plan (ATP) is anticipated to address amenities in public places, including parks, so each park needs infrastructure for public bike parking, an adequate number of water fountains or hydration stations (with pet bowls included with the fountains and that aren't subject to blockage), benches, publicly-accessible restrooms, tree shading, and refuse receptacles (including those for recycling and composting). Currently, the ATP calls out “Bicycle Parking and End-of-Trip Facilities”, but this language does not acknowledge that a park might only be a stopping point on a longer route. If the Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan depends on the ATP to call out all active transportation needs, then such language should be strengthened there. Additionally, all water fountains should be enabled for conversion to hydration stations. Note that ValleyWater offers grants for bottle-filling drinking fountains in public places. While we see hydration stations addressed in 9.1.5 (“Look for opportunities to add hydration systems and drinking fountains along trails and pathways.”), we believe the plan should also note health safety as a factor given we’re living on a warming planet that suffers from heat island effects. Lastly, restrooms and cleanup facilities must be adequately cleaned and maintained, including with soap available in provided dispensers.
We believe the City should avoid using artificial turf in any of our public places, including when turf replacement occurs. Replacing same for same should not be the default mode with this. Artificial turf is made from fossil fuels and contains toxic chemicals linked to cancer. These include PFAS (forever chemicals), which the EPA has moved to stringently regulate in drinking water. Multiple studies have shown that plastic grass:
- Poses increased health and injury risks to athletes,
- Damages the environment and climate, and
- Costs more over its total life cycle than natural alternatives.
Artificial turf not only requires watering, but watering with potable (drinking) water. Its runoff contaminates our local watershed with microplastics and PFAS.
Similarly, we ask that poured-in-place (PIP) rubber should be at least minimized, if not eliminated, where other natural materials (e.g., EWF - Engineered Wood Fiber, ADA Compliant) are available and satisfactory. Artificial turf and PIP are both bad for the environment as material degrades and, at end of life, will end up in landfill (given there are very limited recycling options for these materials). They are also linked to a myriad of serious health issues, and they reach substantially higher temperatures than natural materials and therefore exacerbate heat island effects.
The Biodiversity Strategy and Urban Forest Plan, even though not yet adopted, should, of course, be an essential basis for what is applied to project plans. In particular, with an emphasis on native, and pollinator-friendly landscaping, and with attention to biodiversity, pollinator-corridor accommodation, and wildlife needs. As always, what we build in Mountain View does not exist in a vacuum, and nature does not honor artificial boundaries (or real boundaries for that matter), so a given park needs to be considered from all angles: As itself, as serving the neighborhood, and as existing in our environment as a whole. The best design will serve both human and non-human needs. We would also like to see attention on water conservation and reclamation as important for both habitat and environmental protection.
In the Council Report, in the section Native Planting, Tree Canopy, and Near-Term Park Improvements, we’re not sure what is defined there truly qualifies as “locally native”. We encourage you to ask about this during your questions and discussions on the plan. The community has stated consistently the need for planting locally native species as important to the food web and habitat needs of native animal species as well as the protection and preservation of natural urban forest ecosystems that comprise significant biodiversity. Some park lands could be enhanced by planting native trees, understory plants and vegetation, and by the use of best management practices for the care and maintenance of parkland trees and vegetation. (e.g., use of organic compost, non-use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers). Practices that preserve, restore, and enhance tree canopy and surrounding vegetation help maintain complex and healthy ecosystems in portions of our grassland park areas and serve as a model for other parks. This is also an important component of the city's goal of greater climate actions.
Also essential to this plan are related projects covered in the Capital Improvement Program (CIP). While concerns have been expressed in Council discussions about the number of items covered in the CIP with suggestions to trim it down to some extent, this potential direction is concerning to us as projects can disappear entirely as a result. As these are projects previously considered and approved, we believe that should be deferred if needed rather than removed, which will enable any of them to be brought back later without dependence on institutional memory or drawing from internal records not available, or readily available, to the public. Accordingly, when parks and recreation projects are not funded or are delayed, please direct Staff to keep them visible in a public deferred/unfunded CIP project list rather than removing them entirely from public-facing planning documents. This list could then be used as part of CIP reporting and annual Plan implementation updates, and with the associated Planning Area, Plan action/strategy, estimated cost, reason for deferral, and conditions needed for reconsideration included.
Regarding exterior lighting, please ensure that levels are reasonable to ensure safety and good visibility while preventing overlighting that is known to be detrimental to both wildlife and human physical and mental health. Motion sensors and timers allow for lights to be off when no users are near, and directed light ensures illumination is projected to where it is actually needed. Smart lighting policy benefits the environment and improves safety as it can be most obvious from the street if there are people in the park at night. We expect the City will have specific dark skies ordinances in place in the foreseeable future, but parks developers and support teams should not wait for this to follow best practices now.
Some of our members are rightfully concerned about the preservation of urban forestry and biodiversity on private lands. We understand the City has limited authority to create public parks through the "park land dedication" ordinance (Chapter 41) as part of the city approval process for new residential developments. And the ordinance might not be applicable to forest woodland ecosystems. However, in the event that private property is dedicated to the City, a case could be made for preserving them in their natural state as park-like features.
Lastly, we support the letter submitted to you from the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance and related organizations.
Thank you again for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Bruce England
Leslie Friedman
Rashmi Sahai
Silja Paymer
Tracy Ferea
cc:
John Marchant, Community Services Director
Kristine Crosby, Assistant Community Services Director
Brenda Sylvia, Assistant Community Services Director
Russell Hansen, Urban Forest Manager
Audrey Seymour Ramberg, Assistant City Manager / Chief Operating Officer
Jennifer Ng, Public Works Director
Jennifer Ng, Public Works Director
Allison Boyer, Assistant Public Works Director
Kimbra McCarthy, City Manager
Heather Glaser, City Clerk
About Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning
The Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning is a local volunteer-based organization dedicated to making Mountain View as beautiful, economically healthy, transit, bicycle, and pedestrian accessible, and affordable as possible. MVCSP member interest and expertise covers areas such as housing, transportation, the environment, the economy, and beyond!
For more information, see http://www.mvcsp.org.
To contact us, send email to mvcsp...@gmail.com.
About GreenSpacesMV
GreenSpacesMV is made up of volunteer members who are primarily residents of Mountain View and are, therefore, direct stakeholders affected by what happens in our city. Our focus is on biodiversity, native, drought-tolerant, and pollinator-friendly landscaping, green complete streets, parks and other open spaces, including privately owned, publicly accessible (or POPA) park spaces, and so on. For more information, see https://www.facebook.com/GreenSpacesMV. To contact us, send email to GreenSpac...@gmail.com.