We appreciate all members of the community for providing feedback and heartfelt thoughts about Denny Blaine Park—our parks system is made better by the engagement and advocacy of residents and users. Public comment regarding our proposed supplemental use guidelines for Denny Blaine closed on June 6, 2024. Through the community engagement process it became clear that the suggested guidelines were already covered under existing Parks Code.
Therefore, SPR will not bring these guidelines forward for review by the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners, and we do not intend to adopt these guidelines.
While this process will not result in supplemental use guidelines for Denny Blaine Park, we would like to share several accomplishments that we will build on moving forward:
- We recognized the Friends of Denny Blaine Park through a formal agreement. This queer-led group, including park users of all walks of life and clothing-level choices, has served an important role in advocating for specific park improvements that park users would like to see.
As co-leads Colleen Kimseylove and Sophie Amity Debs said, “The Friends of Denny Blaine are looking forward to continuing practical work as a group and with Seattle Parks and Recreation–caring for the park we all love and helping it better serve parkgoers. Among other projects, we’re currently pursuing community-driven solutions to make folks feel more welcome at the park, working to make safety improvements on the stairway and better access park-wide, replacing the invasive and thorny blackberries, and pursuing a variety of solutions to alleviate parking and transportation issues. The only qualification for being a Friend of Denny Blaine is loving this park; if you want to be a part of the efforts to steward the park, please reach out!”
If you’d like to be a part of the work of community stewardship of Denny Blaine, or learn more about the Friends group, please check out their website here.
- We brought together the leadership of the Friends of Denny Blaine with a small group of neighbors to begin to build relationships, learn from each other’s experience, and identify collaborative solutions. As Spafford Robbins, a neighbor of the park for more than 60 years, put it, “I appreciated the opportunity to sit down with park users, discuss our shared love for the park, and work to build relationships and defuse conflict.”
- We are also on track for some larger-scale improvements on the site in the near future. SPR will fund improvements in 2024-2025 to the staircases including upper landings, handrails, and path improvements. The Friends submitted an idea to SPR’s Parks Community Fund to develop an overall site improvement plan (incorporating accessibility improvements and a long-term plan for the park including the study of the potential for additional parking and restrooms) that has moved forward to project development. Next steps include a review by frontline community partners and SPR staff.