Pony Power Therapies

For over 15 years, Pony Power Therapies has provided participants with disabilities the opportunity to ride and care for horses on its four-acre campus in Mahwah, New Jersey. After acquiring an adjacent three acres, Pony Power partnered with RDG to create a cohesive Comprehensive Site Plan focused on unifying the expanded campus, supporting therapeutic programming, improving safety and accessibility, caring for resident animals, and restoring ecological function.

RDG led a six-month planning process that combined site analysis with input from staff, board members, parents, and volunteers. The resulting design integrates the two properties into a connected landscape with clearly defined arrival points, circulation, and parking, and safe walking paths linking key program areas. A new sensory trail moves through varied terrain and mature tree canopy, while additional rotational paddocks reduce soil compaction and support animal health. Rain gardens, permeable parking, vegetated swales, and infiltration basins manage stormwater, and eroded slopes are stabilized using bioengineered systems planted with native grasses and shrubs.