On Feb. 4, the Town of Carrboro announced plans to renovate playground equipment at Baldwin Park in Northside, a historically Black neighborhood.
Town Facilities Administrator Emily Boykin said in an email that the renovations will include a new main play structure for children aged two to five and six to 12 and are expected to be completed by June 2025.
Changes to the playground will focus on making the layout of the park to be more user-friendly for people of all abilities, Boykin said. For example, she said, if a community member that uses a wheelchair wanted to play in the sand, the Town wants to ensure they are able to use the equipment to do so.
“A lot of the playground equipment that is being introduced now in 2025 is geared toward being more inclusive,” Boykin said. “A lot of the things that we’re finding when we’re replacing playgrounds [is that] the designers are kind of thinking, ‘How can this be more accessible for everyone?'”
Catherine Lazorko, the Town director of community and engagement, said the Carrboro Recreation, Parks, & Cultural Resources Department made efforts to involve the Northside community in the development of the project, including distributing informational door hangers, a survey written in both English and Spanish and hosting a drop-in community gathering in the neighborhood to engage residents.
“It was a nice nod to the neighborhood,” Steph Bryant, a resident of Northside who often takes her two-year-old son to Baldwin Park, said. “Kind of like a, ‘We see you, you deserve to have some of the resources the rest of the Town gets.’”
Lazorko said community engagement is a process of meeting everyone where they are and offering multiple different avenues for providing input on new developments in the town.
“Many staff met people and were able to talk to them when they had time — maybe they were coming in with groceries, or whenever they had five minutes to spare,” she said. “That was a direct contact, and it was face-to-face and personal.”
One of the reasons the renovation was made possible was because the park and surrounding area qualified for funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, Boykin said, which provides cities and counties with funds to offset revenue losses from the pandemic and address other community needs.
