El Paso is the 6th largest city in Texas, the 22nd in the nation, and is home to a population of 678 thousand people. As the region grows, the need to add more parks, and playgrounds increases to serve the communities’ needs, especially regional facilities that provide diverse amenities to serve many different abilities. Reflecting this need, in November 2022 El Paso voters approved the Community Progress Bond Proposition B: Parks & Recreation Facilities, which included a regional, community All-Abilities Playground. All-Abilities playgrounds provide equitable access to play for all children and are specially designed to be accessible and welcoming to children with disabilities. These inclusive spaces address the need for all people, including those who may have intellectual disabilities, autism, hearing or visual impairments, and physical impairments. A properly designed inclusive playground accommodates everyone and engages them at their developmental level while providing opportunities to grow. The City of El Paso is committed to promoting all-abilities play within its park system, with eight parks currently featuring all-abilities play features and environments. 

Beyond Boundaries: El Paso’s All-Abilities Playground Planning Project gathered public input on the vision, theme, programming, and caregiver amenities of the playground. The primary purpose of this planning effort was to talk to disability inclusion experts, children, caregivers, and community members about the regional, all-abilities playground. Over one thousand people were reached during the bi-lingual engagement effort done through surveys, in-person activities, stakeholder meetings, virtual activities, and creative workshop events, such as the children’s playshop. 

Working closely with the City of El Paso’s Capital Improvement and Parks & Recreation Departments, our team also developed a geospatial site selection process that helped to refine available city parcels and score them based on ideal playground conditions. This included data on the parcel’s location near public transportation, with gentle slopes, and located in census tracts with higher percentages of disabled persons. 

The results of the community engagement effort, site selection process, and best practices research for inclusive play were used to develop playground theme, site, feature, and amenity recommendations reflecting the community’s desires for the All-Abilities Playground for El Paso.