ORCHID FOR PLANNING POLICIES

Jury Comments: What do you get when you combine a cool urban park design, a lot of really involved people, eleven creative artists, and a redeveloped community hungry for urban open space?  You get a sweet tweet!…or Tweet Street at Cortez Hill Park. The jury has bestowed an opulent Orchid to this urban gem that steals back an unused Caltrans right-of-way to create a much-needed shady green space with a tot lot, meandering walkways, lawn and even some colorful fireplugs for the pooches!  The ‘Artistas Urbanos’ - CCDC’s creative right hand, showcases their talents in dressing up the park with whimsical banners, exhibits, signage and birdhouses! This respite space, nearly ten years in the making, is a well deserved gift to the Cortez Hill Neighborhood. The jury said “Bravo - we need a hundred more of these!” 

Cortez Hill Park, a new and long awaited downtown linear park designed to encourage people’s awareness and appreciation for wildlife resources within urban San Diego, was completed this year. “Tweet Street” is the CCDC art program that created the themes, colorful banners, and showcases the whimsical, yet functional bird houses that line the new pedestrian paths through newly created Cortez Hill Park.

The park was envisioned as a green edge between the Cortez Hill neighborhood and the streaming traffic of interstate 5 as it winds through downtown San Diego. This 7 block long, 10 to 30 feet wide, linear park provides much needed shady green space, with a lawn and playground for young children, and paths for neighbors to stroll, meet, and enjoy the outdoors. The land for the park was created by moving the freeway fence to reclaim useable space adjacent to the City streets in a cooperative agreement with Caltrans.

The park features many purple flowering Jacaranda trees (the Cortez Hill neighborhood theme tree) as well as many other flowering and fragrant species to provide interest and separation from the freeway. Whimsical plantings of Bird of Paradise and other emphatic and flowering shrub species combine with plants specifically selected to support native birdlife. The colorful kiosk provides information on the local birds and park plant species, as well as the specifics of creating a functional bird house. Examples of creative bird houses, by local artists, line the curved pathway. One features the form of a cat with the entry through the cat’s mouth! Bright banners and signs proclaim the bird themes throughout the park. A self-flushing stainless steel bird bath provides moisture for the birds. Clusters of colorful fire hydrants signal the “Pet Stations”, rest areas designed to provide for the large numbers of urban pets in the area.

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