Parks board to take an (ever-so-brief) pause on Zilker Park plan

Given the sudden collapse of the Zilker Park Vision Plan earlier this month, it’s little surprise that the city’s Parks and Recreation Board has disbanded its working group for the plan. However, the board did so this week with a plan to form a new group in September. 

“I’m not saying we’re stopping the conversation on Zilker Park. I just think the conversation on the vision plan itself, as it existed, needs to stop,” said Chair Pedro Villalobos. “I do think that moving forward, there does need to be a working group created to tackle Zilker Park and other metropolitan parks.” 

The new group, Villalobos said, would “evaluate what Zilker Park looks like, taking into consideration what proponents, opponents (and) rewilding people wanted to see in this thing.” 

He told board members he would like to come up with objectives and a name for the group, using input from community members, by the board’s September meeting.

Despite the fact that the Zilker Park Vision Plan was unceremoniously abandoned in early August, many of the public speakers at the Aug. 28 Parks and Recreation Board meeting lodged complaints about it and the process that led to its final draft. 

Tanya Payne of Rewild Zilker told the board that although the plan had been shelved, the group would still like to work with the parks department and board “so that when it is brought up before City Council, we can have something that all of us can be really proud of.”

Gail Rothe, also with Rewild Zilker, summarized a letter the group had written expressing gratitude that the plan had been shelved. She said the group would soon release their thoughts on the process and a “more unified path forward.”

Rothe said that “in order to move forward productively,” the community needed more data about a survey conducted by the city; information about large trees, impervious cover and carbon sequestration in the park; and the release of technical drawings and transcripts of meetings from meetings with Austin City Limits Music Festival, which takes over the park for two weekends every October. 

Board Member Holly Reed said she really appreciated the “new narrative” forwarded by Rothe and said that she hoped they could be incorporated in the new group.

Board members voted unanimously to dissolve the Zilker Park Vision Plan Working Group.

In his missive explaining that the plan would not be moving forward as scheduled, Mayor Kirk Watson recommended that everyone “cool off for a spell” before starting work on a new plan for Zilker Park. “We could all benefit from a little time and perspective. And then, we can start working together on the recommendations in the plan that have consensus,” he wrote.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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