By Christy Strawser

DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Green space makes any city more livable by giving urbanites the opportunity to relax in nature, which research shows is good for your health, both physical and mental.

But for many people, this may be too much exposure to nature.

Detroit’s Balduck Park is sporting a $2.7 million renovation, which includes an open-air unisex bathroom with a stainless steel toilet.

According to Bridge Magazine, the restroom has a solar panel that runs interior lights at night.

It was designed by the staff of Brad Dick, director of the city’s General Services Department. Dick did not immediately respond to a CBS Detroit call seeking comment on the new facility.

But he told Bill McGraw for Bridge the restroom is “vandal-proof” and secure. It also presumably deters crime and lewd acts. And Dick told Deadline Detroit: “It’s not nice. It’s not pretty. But it’s better than someone just whipping it out in public and going behind a tree.”

CBS Detroit’s Ed Cardenas paid a visit and saw that the steel toilets are basically in the open. But one must peer around the corner to see if it’s occupied, so there’s no way to use the restroom without risking surprising a person who’s already in there.

“I don’t really like no doors,” nearby resident Ed Ware told Cardenas, adding “It seems like (it’s) unsanitary.”

The American Restroom Association, which advocates for the “availability of clean, safe, well designed public restrooms,” isn’t a fan.

Spokesman Robert Brubaker said the latest trend in outdoor facilities is “small well-built vandal-proof restrooms where they let people do something other than hide behind a tree.”

He added: “That’s a level of openness that I’ve never seen before.

“To be frank … the privacy part of it is, I don’t know how to handle it. Obviously, from the side of vandalism, they’ve probably minimized that to the hilt and if you had a situation where people were defecating in bushes then obviously this is a big step up. But I’ve never seen anybody take this half step … usually there’s a door. If you have an open area like that, I would still have expected there to be a stall.”

He also questioned the lack of a sink, though he commended the city for the use of “penitentiary commodes.” “They handle pretty rough characters,” Brubaker said of the lidless toilet.

Is this an innovative solution to potential problems like vandalism, sex and crime in restrooms?

Asking around the CBS Radio offices, many people said they wouldn’t use it under any circumstances.

But one staffer said it would be suitable “in an emergency.”