The results are in!

A local grassroots group has finally gotten a clearer idea of how to a plant a greener future for a neighborhood park.

The Friends of Mosholu Parkland (FOMP) tallied the results of a survey and found Norwood wants a new comfort station, improved lighting, and renovated water features for Kossuth Playground, which opened in 1930.

To bring the proposal to life, FOMP reached out to the office of Councilman Andrew Cohen, who represents Norwood, and Partnerships for Parks to help organize an event that would allow residents to voice the needs for Kossuth Playground.

“We had a lot of fun doing this with the community residents, and it created a togetherness that we are all in this neighborhood together working towards improvements,” said Elizabeth Quaranta, president of FOMP. “We [FOMP] have had community conversations with the residents one-on-one, which is why we came up with the idea that we needed this community visioning to document what the residents were telling us,” she said.

Support for a community visioning plan started in early 2015. FOMP hosted an event in mid-October to give residents a chance to express what they would like to see in their neighborhood park. Over 100 participants joined in on the interactive survey.

With the help of Partnerships for Parks and People Make Park Strategies, FOMP was able to create storyboards, conduct video interviews, and establish voting booths to gain feedback. The responses then went to the “Tree of Wishes,” a gimmicky way of collecting suggestions on improvements for the park.

Results also showed that a majority of the people who go to the park are teens who use the park to play basketball. While the least number of park-goers were children aged nine or younger, some responders stated that they would not let their children play in Kossuth Playground because it is too dingy. “We were not surprised by the results,” said Quaranta.

A report was later compiled by Fernando Tirado, former Community Board 7 district manager and member of FOMP. The report would be used as a formal way to present its findings to city agencies.

“[Tirado has] worked with the community as the past district manager and has moved on since then helping small businesses and non-profit groups like us to tell their story so they can see the same vision and achieve that goal,” said Quaranta.

“The playground is extremely important to this group because it is the only playground on the grounds of Mosholu Parkway,” said Quaranta. “It felt like Parks and leaders in the area gave up on this neighborhood when things got bad in the old days.”

Quaranta will meet with the Bronx Parks & Recreation Commissioner this month to discuss the results of the Community Visioning Report.  The cost of these improvements has yet to be determined.