Close to Home

Improving Park Equity in Batesville, Arkansas

Improving parks access

Everyone should have access to a quality park within a 10-minute walk of their neighborhood. The City of Batesville 's Parks and Recreation Department is committed to providing access to parks and greenspace for all.

Close-to-home parks serve as essential backyards and open up countless possibilities for communities by offering the daily benefits of direct experience with nature — such as the motivation to explore, discover, and learn about their world and to engage in health-promoting physical activity.

*West Splash Park | Batesville, Arkansas*

Why a 10-minute walk?

The 10-minute walk metric — about half a mile — is the average distance most people are willing to walk to reach a destination. Ensuring access to high-quality, safe green space in all neighborhoods is essential to creating an equitable park system.

Our Residents need outdoor spaces more than ever. Investing in local parks and advancing equitable access to the outdoors is critical to promoting healthy communities.
Kathy Maness | National League of Cities

About the initiative

The Close to Home parks equity initiative is a City of Batesville Parks and Recreation parks equity project in collaboration with the National League of Cities ' Cities Connecting Children to Nature program, IMPACT Independence County Excel by 8 , and the Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce .

We share a vision of improving and expanding our parks, greenspaces, and greenway trail system. We envision a future where people have socially active lifestyles at every stage of life. We aim to increase the number of children who enter kindergarten socially ready, physically on track, and ready to learn. We believe ALL children should have a strong start to reach their full potential.

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Access to safe outdoor greenspaces within walking distance of residents’ homes is more critical than ever. Early childhood nature connection is a way to recover more equitably from the pandemic, especially in communities that lack nature access.
Jeff Owens | Batesville Parks and Recreation Director

This is another step in improving quality of life, with specific connections to early childhood education. Our community collaborates at an expert level and we are so excited to learn new best practices to inspire future collaborations.
Jamie Rayford | Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce COO

community parks audit

The Close to Home team partnered with 5th graders from Sulphur Rock Elementary School's EAST program to rate our parks using the Community Park Audit Tool (CPAT).

Students visited each of Batesville's parks and graded the observable features and amenities. Students looked for things like the number of bathrooms, adequate lighting, surrounding area, park appeal, activities for users, and more. Higher scores correspond with positive experiences at each park, and lower scores indicate the absence of observable features.

Category	Score
Features	X
Appeal	X
Amenities	X
Safety	X
CPAT Score	28 Possible Points

Close to Home Parks

Batesville Park boundaries are highlighted in GREEN. A half-mile buffer zone shows which neighborhoods are within a 10-minute walk. Roadways are ORANGE, and railroads are PINK. Parks are listed in ascending order of CPAT Scores. The background layer shows the density of households below the poverty line, according to Census Block Group (2020).

what's next?

Close to Home parks equity initiative partners will use this information to prioritize investment in identified neighborhoods. City Parks will continue to be audited annually.