Not only is the urban unincorporated area south of Tacoma and Puyallup short of roads, it is also short on parks. Kids and families in urban areas need places to hang out for safe activities. Backyards are now too small for even a large dog to have space to pee.

The general Parkland vicinity now has several parks, but Spanaway technically has only one and you have to pay to get in there by car. Spanaway Park is in the far north end of the designated community. There are no parks to the south until you reach Eatonville, McKenna, or Roy. To the east, there is Cross Park in Frederickson and Frontier Park in Graham.

Basically, there is a large void in parks from an infrastructure perspective for the amount of urban population the county has designated for Spanaway, Frederickson, South Hill, and Graham. We all know that means kids will be playing in the street. And every mom and dad dreads what can potentially happen from that.

Tiffany Odell, Pierce County Parks Director recently spoke at the Parkland Spanaway Rotary meeting about the need to “add inventory” to the county parks system. We should all be talking to our county council person about this. As the community planning review comes up, do not forget to mention it. Our safety depends on kids having safe places to play.

Pocket parks in housing developments were a stop gap for planning for many years used as an excuse that parks were being provided. Sadly, HOA’s are not friendly to outsiders using their pocket parks for liability reasons.

This map was taken from the Pierce County Public GIS system. Circled in gold are large swaths of area without parks. In yellow, that are is partly rural designation, but there is still a very large population living there that could also use parks. As you can see, the vacancies are really large. The County budget, not so big. This is one thing cities really do better.