Fairmount Greenway: Vacant Lots + Open Space Parcels

Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park, Massachusetts

Client: Fairmount Greenway Task Force, Fairmount/Indigo CDC Collaborative

Year: 2013-Present

Project Team

  • Civic Space Collaborative, Project Manager

  • Fairmount Greenway Task Force Members, community leads

  • City of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development

  • Boston Parks and Recreation Department

  • Department of Conservation + Recreation

  • Livable Streets Alliance

  • The Trust for Public Land 

  • MAPC

Six priority open space parcels were identified by the Fairmount Greenway Task Force through neighborhood community processes. We engaged residents in a series of visioning sessions for each parcel. This included:

  • Organizing evening community meetings

  • Site visits with residents and city staff

  • Attending neighborhood association meetings

  • Talking to people at farmers markets about how they used to play as children

  • Conducting clean-up days on the parcels


The new open spaces include two community gardens (one completed in Mattapan and one in progress in Uphams Corner), an urban agriculture site in Codman Square that’s been producing food since 2014, a food forest in Four Corners, and an in-process visioning for long-time neglected DCR playground in Hyde Park.

Fairmount Greenway Related Projects