City of Holland Parks and Recreation

Andy Kenyon supervises the city Parks and Recreation department. The department is responsible for 423 acres of city land including 23 parks, 17 playgrounds, 30tennis/pickleball courts, and about 12 baseball fields. The year-round crew totals 20, but this expands by more than a hundred in the summer.

 

The City of Holland has been named a "Tree City USA" for 43 consecutive years by the Arbor Day Foundation. This designation is awarded for excellence in tree management.

 

When the tree crew has to take down a tree they always try to repurpose as much of the tree as they can. They have provided ODC with logs for their outdoor playgrounds. The ODC playground at Window on the Waterfront required 50 logs. The 165-year-old tree in Centennial Park was partially made into wooden bowls specially engraved with their origin. Wood is also milled into lumber. Several city offices have paneling made from city trees.

 

There is an app called TreeSap that was developed by Hope College for the city. Hope students and faculty surveyed every city owned tree and placed the information in a GIS system. The app geo-locates every tree and can tell you the type of tree, size, how much CO₂ is sequestered, how much water runoff is prevented, and what is removed for various pollutants.

 

Andy showed the latest design for the ice ribbon park on 6th street. There will be 800 linear feet of skating space.

 

The order for 547,000 tulip bulbs was just placed to be planted in October and November.