Portland’s nationally-renowned parks system is struggling.

The impact of years of delayed maintenance projects and revenue cuts is hard to hide: Shuttered public bathrooms, cracked and peeling athletic courts, splintered play structures and cancelled youth classes pepper the city.

Now, less than a year after Portlanders voted to raise property taxes to pay for parks, Mayor Keith Wilson has again proposed cuts to parks programs and jobs. With tax dollars unable to meet the city’s needs, and other revenues falling short, the city is now turning to outside groups, such as private organizations, national nonprofits and volunteers, to pick up the slack.

Some call it a risky move toward privatizing city parks. Others see an inspired way for the community to pitch in to help beloved natural areas and programs.

“I’m not willing to keep going back to Portlanders for another tax increase,” said Councilor Dan Ryan, who supports partnering with outside organizations to keep city parks afloat. “We have to show what we’re doing on our side to be innovative and creative. And lean into that.”

These partnerships could benefit a parks system hanging on by a thread. But they could also introduce risks to equity and labor rights, values that Portland progressives hold dear.

Across the U.S., privately-funded parks are often found in wealthier neighborhoods, frequented by deep-pocket donors and patrons. Portland leaders, residents and parks advocates raised fears with OPB that private organizations’ revenue interests could squander low-income Portlanders’ access to parks programs.

“I want us to be able to harness the good energy of Portlanders who want to pitch in; that’s what makes us a community,” said Councilor Candace Avalos. “But if we’re outsourcing the management of land to a group that’s not accountable to the city, that’s different.”

Catherine McNeur, a professor of Portland parks history at Portland State University, says these public-private parks partnerships could create “a slippery slope.”

“I don’t think there’s a perfect answer,” said McNeur. “Honestly, it’s going to be a puzzle.”

A history of outside help

Public parks and recreation programs in Portland have leaned on philanthropy and other outside support in the past to withstand financial shortfalls.

During the Great Depression, federal assistance paid for hundreds of unemployed Portlanders to build miles of trails through Hoyt Arboretum, pave the road through Mt. Tabor Park, and regularly maintain acres of city parks, among other projects.

The 1970s recession saw the birth of “friends groups,” or clusters of volunteers committed to cleaning up trash and maintaining their neighborhood park. These groups are largely associated with parks in more affluent neighborhoods, where people have free time to volunteer and spare money to donate

These groups have repeatedly stepped in during other financial downturns. In the 1980s, botanists John and Lilla Leach donated their Southeast Portland property to the city to be developed into a botanical garden.

But the city was unable to take on the financial burden of the property, risking its closure – so the Leach Garden Friends group formed to oversee and develop the city-owned property.

At the time, McNeur said, it was meant to be a short-term fix. But the city didn’t make plans to take the property back.

It occasionally gave the group funds to cover operating costs. But not enough to keep the small nonprofit solvent. When budget cuts kept the city from handing money over last year, the nonprofit announced it might need to close. The park’s future remains uncertain.

McNeur said it’s an example of why public-private partnerships can be unreliable.

“Ideally, it would have been great to just be run by the city,” she said. “That’s true for all city spaces [run by friends groups.] These should be solutions for temporary crises.”

There are other examples of outside groups stepping up.

In 2002, Nike gave $2 million to resurface all public basketball courts and committed to updating 30 of them again in 2018. During the recession of the late 2000s, Kemper Sports signed a contract with the city to operate two city golf courses.

That company now runs four of the city’s five public courses.

During that decade, the city also established the Portland Parks Foundation, a nonprofit designed to bring in money to help fund public parks projects. Executive Director Jessica Green said these partnerships shouldn’t be considered temporary.

“The government can only do so much,” Green said. “We’re creating this opportunity for the community to invest and say, ‘Let’s make this even better than the baseline.’ I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

Another funding emergency

Portland’s parks are again at a moment of fiscal crisis.

Years of budget shortfalls have kept the city from investing in major maintenance projects, like replacing crumbling lamp posts in city parks and fixing the structurally unsafe Columbia Pool in North Portland.

According to the parks bureau, nearly 90% of all parks facilities are in “poor” condition, and it could take up to $800 million to restore them to a “reasonable” level of wear and tear.

An October city audit found this financial crisis was largely due to poor long-term financial planning.

Meanwhile, Portland continued to open new parks, with a focus on East Portland neighborhoods – an area with a historic shortage of green spaces. Those parks are largely paid for by specialized development fees that can only be spent on new parks projects, not maintenance.

In a recent report by the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit, Portland ranks sixth on the list of cities that spend the most on public parks, with the bureau spending $322 per person on its parks system.

Even with its high per capita parks spending, the city says it has a money problem.

The city attempted to address parks’ declining revenue in 2020, when it passed a levy to pay for parks programs and services. That levy, renewed and expanded last November, is expected to bring in about $84 million in the first year – but it only puts about $2 million towards parks maintenance annually, a sliver of the money needed to fix the failing assets.

What’s more, Wilson’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year suggests cutting parks maintenance by nearly $3 million, eliminating 46 parks jobs, and reducing hours at community centers and other facilities.

And, like in the past, the private sector is stepping in to assist.

In 2019, when the current trend of deep cuts to the Parks Bureau kicked off, the city announced plans to shutter a 100-year-old community center in Sellwood.

The threat activated a group of volunteers to form Friends of Sellwood Community House.

Within months, the group asked the city to take over the building’s management. The community organization was able to lease the building from the city for $1, in a deal where they pledged to cover the aging building’s maintenance needs and keep youth and other drop-in programs running.

The center has been running effectively ever since, with a $3.2 million annual budget and 75 employees. Director Ashley Murray said her business plan relies on using new revenue sources like selling snacks at a previously shuttered city building in Sellwood Park, expanding class options and renting out the building for events.

“That’s what’s unique about nonprofit partnerships,” she said. “We can be really creative with our business plans and our business models. We can pilot things and iterate, where the city can’t.”

Murray said she has been heartened by the bureau’s new interest in outside partnerships.

Last year, the city created a new position in the bureau focused solely on outside partnerships. The city declined to make the city employee in that role, Kellie Torres, available for an interview. Torres is running for a Portland city council seat in November.

She’s working closely on the latest proposed private-public partnership, a plan to let the U.S. Tennis Association run the Portland Tennis Center, a 53-year-old Northeast Portland facility with a notoriously leaky roof and poor lighting.

The draft plan would hand the facility over to USTA for a three-year lease for $1 total. The organization would operate and manage the tennis center as well as the nearly 100 other public tennis courts.

USTA would collect all fees and revenue from programs previously run by the city. In exchange, the city would no longer have to pay $2.2 million in annual operating expenses or be responsible for fixing the building. USTA would spend $1.2 million to renovate the tennis center.

Mark Ross, a spokesperson for the bureau, said that the city has not yet calculated how much money this contract could save the parks department in the long term, noting the agreement is still “under review.” Yet Wilson’s proposed budget for the coming year accounts for the deal going through, including laying off four city parks staff.

Councilor Ryan connected with USTA representatives after learning about the leaking roof in 2024, when he was the city’s commissioner overseeing parks. He believes the partnership is the key to keeping the city assets meeting the public’s needs.

“Otherwise, the private market will just do it for us,” Ryan said.

As an example, Ryan pointed to the city’s slow investment in public pickleball courts, which coincided with the opening of several private, popular pickleball centers in town.

“I don’t want that to happen [to tennis],” said Ryan. “I’d rather have the beautiful land and play areas that we have at parks be maximized to its fullest potential.”

An eye to equity

Leasing public assets on the cheap to private organizations may not guarantee a universal public benefit.

The parks bureau’s “access discount program” grants discounts on recreation fees and classes of up to 90% to anyone who asks. This isn’t available at privately-operated facilities.

There are similar programs, like a youth and senior discount program at Kemper’s golf courses and scholarship options for low-income visitors at Sellwood Community House (Murray said they’ve “never turned anyone away”), but this policy isn’t established in the lease.

The same goes for USTA, which included a pledge to offer discounts and scholarships to tennis center players in an early proposal.

McNeur, the PSU professor, said it’s risky when a city hands a public asset over to private management.

“There is a point where it becomes privatized enough that, well, do the tennis lessons then get more expensive? Do they limit who gets to play?” McNeur said. “I have a lot of worries and concerns if it’s not being publicly run and there’s not a politician that voters can point to if things go wrong.”

Ross said the city can include details in their leases with nonprofits that require public access, affordability, programming expectations, and other standards. Ryan said he’s confident this could apply to the USTA deal.

But other councilors share McNeur’s concerns.

At an April council budget meeting, several councilors asked if the USTA deal would limit access for low-income Portlanders. Others questioned the bureau’s new stated commitment to partnering with more private entities to run public assets.

Councilor Avalos warned that a reliance on benevolent donors or businesses to run public facilities could come at a cost for the city’s equity goals.

“The reality is that wealthier neighborhoods are often better positioned to supplement public investment with donations or private partnerships,” said Avalos, who represents East Portland’s District 1, where residents earn less on average than the rest of the city.

“Many of the families in my district do not have that capacity, and they’re taxpayers too,” she continued. “They voted for the parks levy too, and they deserve clean, safe, and maintained parks and functioning community spaces without having to privately backfill basic city operations themselves.”

In cities across the country, parks that are run with private funds are often centered in higher-income neighborhoods. This is the case in New York City, where publicly-run parks face annual maintenance cuts as privately-run public parks like Central Park and the High Line gleam and grow.

Avalos isn’t opposed to partnering with nonprofits to run parks programs. Like McNeur, she said they should act as a supplement to parks programs, instead of the main operator.

She’s interested in finding a new revenue source for parks beyond the parks levy that taps into the city’s higher-income earners.

“This is union-busting 101.”

Outside of equity concerns, Portland leaders see another risky workaround in partnering with outside organizations to run parks.

At the April budget meeting, Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney noted that the city would be cutting unionized city jobs by ending its oversight of the tennis center – instead handing over responsibility to a non-unionized USTA staff.

“This is union-busting 101,” said Ryan Sotomayor, a representative of the Laborers’ Local 483, which represents hundreds of parks employees. “It’s hard not to see it as a way to consolidate power and cut out union jobs.”

Several Laborers’ Local members work at the tennis center. Sotomayor said they’ve been told they might be laid off – but have mostly faced uncertainty from their management.

Sotomayor doesn’t think outsourcing city jobs to private organizations is the solution to budget woes. He pointed to the numerous partnerships already in place between the city and nonprofit groups where the city is still involved but doesn’t hand over the keys. Like community centers where nonprofits run programs for immigrants, youth and seniors.

“Why not just amplify that?” Sotomayor said. “Instead, you’re handing over a city asset and will lose all access and revenue.”

What’s next

Portland is about to completely hand over one of its Parks Bureau assets.

Sellwood Community House is currently in the process of purchasing its leased building from the city for $1 with a deed restriction requiring it to remain a community center to serve the public good “in perpetuity.”

That’s not all.

The Sellwood nonprofit announced earlier this month that it was going to lease the vacant Laurelhurst Studio, a former city-run performing arts studio in Laurelhurst Park that lost city funding in 2019.

Under the 10-year lease, the nonprofit pledges to put $300,000 of maintenance work on the building, instead of paying a lease, and reopen it as a community center.

Murray, who runs Sellwood Community House, believes it can be a model for other groups. But she believes the city should be intentional about who it chooses to lease to, and when.

She worries that, as the city continues to lose money, it may hastily allow “random groups” to step in to run public programs with little direction or oversight.

“The city does not appear to have a citywide strategy for these assets,” she said. “That means they’re just reacting.”

It’s the same conclusion reached by city auditors last year. In response to that audit, city leaders pledged to draft a real long-term strategy for funding its parks. That plan remains unfinished

In the meantime, the city is holding steady.

The recent Trust for Public Land report places Portland ninth out of a 100-city ranking of best city park systems. That’s the same ranking it earned last year.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/26/portland-looks-to-private-organizations-to-save-its-struggling-parks-system/