Children's Play Areas (CPAs)

CPAs on Open Data

This project generates the NYC Parks Children's Play Areas (CPA) dataset (as points, not polygons). These points are centroids of clusters of play equipment meant to be used by children (notably, excluding basketball courts, adult equipment and other amenities currently included in Parks' Playground data set).

Data Product Overview: Children's Play Areas (CPAs)

Children's Play Areas (CPAs) are points that mark clusters of play units within NYC Parks. While otherwise known as playgrounds, this term is deliberately avoided because properties or subproperties named as playgrounds may contain more than just play units (e.g., adult fitness equipment, basketball/handball courts, etc.), or may not contain play units at all.

CPA points are the centroids (geometric centers) of all play units that are within physical view of each other within a park or subproperty. If there are objects obstructing view of one play unit from another within a park or subproperty (e.g. a building, fence, large field, etc.) then multiple CPA points are created in that park or subproperty. The CPA points are generated by a script developed by Innovation & Performance Management (IPM). In order for this data product to remain current, the script is scheduled to run daily whereby CPA attributes and source data from which they are derived remain consistent and in sync.

Purpose of this document

The purpose of this data product overview is to identify and describe the attributes associated with CPAs. Since many CPA attributes are derived from other data sources, this document also identifies those source systems, tables, and fields, as well as the owners of those source fields. In case there is an inquiry regarding where the name, location, or any other attribute of a CPA comes from, owners of the source data should be contacted. Finally, this document identifies both the owners of as well as groups/divisions/individuals most likely to consume this CPA data product. Primary consumers will likely be the most capable parties of spotting errors, inconsistencies, missing information, etc., and can contribute to the ongoing data quality checks of this product.

Data Product Owners

IPM

Primary Data Product Consumers

Digital Media

List of all CPA attributes

system, GISpropNum, OMPpropID, grp, department, name, additionalNameInfo, location, additionalLocationInfo, rules, accessibility, accessibilityLevel, featureStatus, statusChangeDate, inheritedFrom, tmpCPAID, notes, shape

Attributes derived from other data sets

GISpropNum, OMPpropID, department, name and location fields are inherited from either the Property, Playground, Zone, or Greenstreet layer. The inheritedFrom attribute specifies which layer they are inherited from.

rules is inherited from the Sign layer.

accessibility and accessibilityLevel are inherited from a json feed.

Attributes unique to CPAs

The system, grp, additionalNameInfo, additionalLocationInfo, featureStatus, statusChangeDate, inheritedFrom, tmpCPAID, notes, and shape fields are generated by the script that creates the CPA points.

Attribute Table

Attribute	Description	Generative Process	Derived from Another Source	Source Data Owner / Modifier
system	Unique ID of the CPA	Created when a new CPA is generated or when an existing CPA needs to have an updated ID (e.g. because of a change in source data)	No	IPM
GISpropNum	ID of the property that contains the CPA	Inherited from the GISPROPNUM field in either Property, Playground, Zone, or Greenstreet. inheritedFrom field indicates which one.	Yes	Planning / Parklands, OMP
OMPpropID	OMP ID of property or sub-property that contains the CPA	Inherited from the OMPPROPID field in either Property, Playground, Zone, or Greenstreet. inheritedFrom field indicates which one.	Yes	OMP
grp	Group ID (1 or 2) of cluster of play units within a single park or sub-property (i.e. when more than one CPA is created within a park or sub-property)	Generated by script	No	IPM
department	The Parks maintenance district within which CPA resides	Inherited from the DEPARTMENT field in either Property, Playground, Zone, or Greenstreet. inheritedFrom field indicates which one.	Yes	Planning / Parklands, OMP
name	Name of the property or sub-property that contains the CPA	Inherited from the appropriate field in either Property (SIGNNAME) Playground (Site_Name) Zone (SITENAME) Greenstreet (DESCRIPTION) inheritedFrom field indicates which one. See name section below for more details.	Yes	Planning / Parklands, OMP, Marketing
additionalNameInfo	Cardinality (e.g. East or West) added to CPA name when one CPA point is split into	NULL for most CPAs. Cardinality added by IPM in cases where single CPA point is split into two or more.	No	IPM
location	Closest cross streets to CPA	Inherited from the LOCATION field in either Property, Playground, Zone, or Greenstreet. inheritedFrom field indicates which one	Yes	Planning / Parklands, OMP
additionalLocationInfo	Cardinality or other detail added to CPA location when one CPA point is split into two or more	NULL for most CPAs. Additional location detail added by IPM in cases where single CPA point is split into two or more	No	IPM
rules	Whether adults are allowed within the premises of CPA	Inherited from the SubType field in Sign See rules section below for more details	Yes	Marketing, IT GIS
accessibility	Whether the play units associated with CPA are ADA compliant (Yes or No)	Inherited from json feed See accessibility section below for more details	Yes	Capital
accessibilityLevel	Level of accessibility, ranging from 1-4: Level 1: playgrounds for all children Level 2: accessible playgrounds with ramped play equipment and universally accessible swings Level 3: accessible playgrounds with universally accessible swings Level 4: accessible playgrounds with transfer platforms and ground level play features	Inherited from json feed See accessibility section below for more details	Yes	Capital
featureStatus	Status (active or archived) of the CPA	If underlying data changes such that CPA system ID needs to be archived, this field is manually updated Default is active	No	IPM
statusChangeDate	Date that CPA featureStatus is changed from active to archived	Upon change of featureStatus of CPA, date is populated Default is NULL	No	IPM
inheritedFrom	Indicates which layer CPA attributes such as name, location are inherited from (Property, Playground, Zone, or Greestreet)	Generated by the script	No	IPM
tmpCPAID	Temporary unique ID of CPA, generated by the script, for the purpose of uniquely tying CPA to underlying play units in the play unit reference table (dbo.tbl_playunit_cpa_ref)	Generated by the script	No	IPM
notes	Description of why CPA featureStatus is changed from active to archived	Script prompts entry when needed Default is NULL	No	IPM
shape	Point location of the new CPA, in most cases is the geometric center of associated play units	In most cases, the correct point is auto-generated by the script as a centroid of a cluster of play units. When exceptions occur (e.g. point lands outside of Parks property, point lands on top of building, athletic field, etc.) the situation is flagged and is resolved manually.	No	IPM

Name Attribute: Further Details

The Name Committee, led by the Commissioner's office, vets and approves changes to park or sub-property names. After sign-off from the Commissioner, Mark McCormack (Commissioner's office) informs the Agency Chief of Staff, Planning, the Borough Commissioners' offices, Digital Media, OMP, Art & Antiquities, Government Relations, and IT of the change.

Upon sign-off, Antonios Michelakis (AM) from Planning and Alex Butler (AB) from OMP update the fields in appropriate Parks GIS layers (Property, Playground, Zone, or Greenstreet). Every time the CPA script is run, those changes are inherited by the CPA dataset.

The SIGNNAME attribute in the Property feature class is updated by AM.

The Site_Name attribute in the Playground feature class is updated by AB.

The SITENAME attribute in the Zone feature class is updated by AB.

The DESCRIPTION attribute in the Greenstreet feature class is updated by (data owner?).

In the future, if data flow/business processes permit the name attribute to be updated in one place, the CPA script will need to be updated accordingly.

Rules Attribute: Further Details

The Marketing division manages the Sign dataset for the agency, which includes rules for public usage of every park, such as hours open, who is allowed, whether barbecuing is allowed, etc.

For the CPA script, rules are inherited from DWH.dbo.TBL_ParksGIS_Sign in the following way:

1. For each CPA point, a 150 ft. buffer is created.

2. This buffer is spatially intersected with the Sign GIS layer.

3. The CPA dataset's rules field then inherits the AmenityType value from the Sign GIS layer (currently, the only updated version of this layer lives in the DWH db on data.parks. Sign in ParksGIS is not updated). Buffers that do not intersect with any sign are given a value of UNKNOWN. Buffers that intersect with multiple signs take all signs into consideration when generating the rule (e.g. Adults allowed in some locations).

Currently, changes to the Sign dataset are not automatically updated. Marketing uses an ArcGIS web app to document signs installed in parks - the team typically makes updates in the spring and fall of each year. As these edits are stored in the cloud in the ArcGIS web app, the dataset needs to be manually exported by IT GIS from the cloud and into the ParksGIS database. When requested by Marketing, IT GIS updates the Sign layer in ParksGIS with the latest feature class from the web app. These changes are inherited by CPAs the next time the CPA script is run.

The CPA script pulls values from the following fields in the Sign layer to create CPA rules:

• Shape (for the location of the sign)

• AmenityType (type of sign):

  • Playground - Adults Allowed (Code 2600)

  • Playground - Children Only (Code 2601)

  • Combo: Playground / Court (Code 2602), which allows both children and adults

• MountingSurface

• SignStatus (Surveyed or Installed)

See the source code for further details on how rules are generated from the above fields for CPAs.

Accessibility Attributes: Further Details

accessibility information (Yes/No, Level) is currently maintained by Christopher Noel in Capital, and updated for the Parks website by Digital Media. This source data lives here and is inherited by CPAs via the script using spatial joins.

Note: The accessibility and accessibilityLevel attributes will be expanded in 2020 and beyond, as IPM is working with Christopher Noel/Capital and with Digital Media to introduce additional accessibility details at the play unit level, such that the public can find CPAs based on specific accessibility attributes they desire. This is currently an ongoing project that will update and overhaul the existing accessibility attributes.