L.A.'s Griffith Park Gets Ready For A Makeover

"The park has more than 4,200 acres making it the largest municipally owned urban park in the United States, and it has more than 10 million visitors annually. It's really comparable in size to a small city, and the Department of Recreation and Parks is responsible for everything in its boundaries. The department is responsible for the roads, water system, infrastructure, as well as all the facilities in the park, and providing active and passive recreation for the region."

"When we first started working on this project we spent a lot of time in the park learning about it. We discovered so many opportunities to learn about all kinds of things: environment, biology, nature, and cultural history. There is also a lot of social interaction as part of the recreation and we felt it was an opportunity to make the park an educational resource for the whole city, since learning and play are very symbiotic."

"This master plan addresses the park as a whole, but it defers to the other planning documents already produced for the zoo, the Observatory, the Greek Theater, the Autry, and Travel Town Museum. It does deal with how these facilities integrate into the park. The master plan creates a framework that will guide the management and operations of the park over the next 25 years."

"This plan is not a specific plan, but it may be appropriate for its major conclusions and recommendations to be incorporated into the city's general plan. It includes the history of the park, project goals and vision, comprehensive mapping defining the natural systems and habitats, existing uses and proposed future enhancements to the park, opportunities for improvements addressing mobility, sustainability, habitat restoration, design guidelines, and management and maintenance issues going forward that incorporate the major plan goals provided to us by the Recreation and Parks Department, with all of the elements being rooted in the existing strengths of the park."