I have been offered a chance to hunt deer at night in a suburban park as part of a management program.  I've hunted this park many times during the day and have taken 11 deer from there in the past 5 years. I will be using a crossbow. Firearms are not an option.

The range will be 30 yards or less.  The area is wooded.  There are lights near the nature center but I expect the deer will avoid that area after the first few nights. FWIW, the terms of the nascence tags forbid baiting.

Is a gen 1 optic like the Armasight Vega good enough for this purpose?

I'll probably pull the AimPoint off my rifle for this hunt. Although I've thought about a laser. Does it have to be IR or could I use a visible laser?

If you can keep the laser off til you're aiming you should be fine. I haven't had issues with spooking.

But you want to be silent, as seen in the video above. So quiet the crickets keep chirping. In a park I doubt your smell would matter much.

I understand the rules may prohibit guns (I'd use a suppressed 22 if at all possible, I understand it may not be), but unless you like tracking, you need to break the spine with the shot. The jugulars are a close second. Heart/lungs is ok if you're ok with and can track them up to 100 yards, maybe more with a bow.

Shooting a deer with a 22 not in a survival situation is unethical as all hell.

If you use a gen 1 optic you'll most likely need another supplemental it  illumination source.

Shooting a deer with something with less energy and less potential to break the spine is ethical as all hell though, right?

If you get a decent monocular that can be worn on a headset you can use a crossbow scope with it.  You'll have to adjust the focus a bit, but it works great.  Just make sure you leave enough distance between the NVG and your scope when you shoot so that the recoil doesn't let the scope bang into the NVG.  Give a couple trial shots into a target to check..

Many years ago, I put an ATN MK390 (3x) and MK410 (4x) on a crossbow.  Yes, supplemental IR is needed.  Both worked fine.  I've also used a laser on the crossbow (both IR and standard red) with a helmet mounted gen3 PVS14, and that set up worked great too.  Better than the heavy gen 1 scopes, but they got the job done on piggies.  

With a crossbow, the yardage is KEY.

Participated in something similar, we were allowed to use rifles. If you have snow, just put your best glass riflescope on the xbow. I used a Nightforce 2.5-10x, it was no problem at all. A thermal optic & monocular (for scanning) would have been better, but I was able to see (and ID) all the critters in my immediate area.

What park?

A visible laser would be fine. I've tried to spook deer away with a visible laser while coyote hunting and they have no idea what is going on.