Mayor Eric Johnson’s vision of every Dallas resident living within a 10-minute walk of a park is coming into sharper focus, even if it’s one that still needs a lot more clarity.

A public-private partnership hopes to soon launch a pilot program to eventually place 15 new parks on vacant, unused land owned by the city, one in each district and another citywide.

But what is still too blurry is the question of maintenance. At a meeting of a Dallas City Council committee this month, representatives of the partnership told the city those costs would be shouldered by the Park and Recreation Department as well as volunteer stewardship programs.

The Council should carefully examine these potentially high, down-the-road costs in deciding whether to move ahead with the next phase of the program, and we hope the partnership presents projects that will require minimal upkeep or include a long-term plan for funding maintenance.

There’s no question Dallas isn’t green enough. The city ranked 53rd in a 2022 analysis of park and green space access in the nation’s largest cities, according to the nonprofit Trust for Public Land. Even though the city has 400 parks across 20,000 acres, it seems a lot of us have more concrete under our feet than grass. Only about 73% of Dallasites live within a 10-minute walk of a park or trail.

At his State of the City address last year, the mayor called for an inventory of all unused city-owned land that could be made into parks. In April, he appointed Garrett Boone, the co-founder of The Container Store, as the city’s first “greening czar.” The following month, Johnson directed $1.25 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to the greening efforts.

The partnership narrowed the inventory by considering the location of the city’s worst urban heat islands and gaps between existing parks. Admirably, it also considered areas with the most health disparities, recognizing that community health improves when parks are nearby.

Trust officials told the City Council’s Parks, Trails and Environment Committee that they’ve divided the 15 pilot projects into three groups. They hope to soon receive staff and Council support for the first five, which they wouldn’t name, so they can gather neighborhood input and even install “pop-up” parks to test how the parks do. The first permanent parks could open as soon as summer 2025.

Each of the projects would cost $500,000 to build; the ARPA funds and private donations would cover that, trust officials told the committee. The city would provide “standard maintenance,” but “friends of” community groups would be organized to provide additional care.

Transforming city-owned land, such as unused water utility properties, into healthy, thriving parks is imaginative and exciting. But the last thing the city needs is for ants to spoil the picnic. Taking care that these new parks are well-maintained with less public and more private dollars will ensure these projects are relaxing and attractive, not costly burdens.