Parks board tables recommendation on Zilker vision plan after public debate

The city’s Parks and Recreation Board became an outlet for pent-up concern about the draft Zilker Park vision plan last week. For more than two hours, community members and organizations including the Texas Sierra Club and Save Our Springs Alliance testified about concerns about the city’s public engagement process and components of the resulting vision plan.

Chair Laura Cottam Sajbel noted that she would not limit the number of speakers because “we have felt that we did not hear enough of the public voices through some of the community engagement.”

Bill Bunch of Save Our Springs Alliance pointed to the Zilker Rewilding Plan that the group is putting forward as an alternative to the city’s vision plan. Bunch also referenced public input from PARD’s Our Parks, Our Future long-range plan. The community’s first three priorities according to feedback from that plan are natural beauty, places to connect to nature, and maintenance, he said. Yet, “The plan from the consultants does virtually none of those and is hostile to all of them.”

Bunch said the “whole reason” Austin has Zilker Park is to protect Barton Springs, which is “the soul of our city.” He said the city should be focused on buying and preserving more watershed lands and he complained the vision plan does too much to accommodate Live Nation, which he pointed out is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.

Other speakers questioned whether the changes would allow continued free access to the park and whether construction would upend daily activities there. Some wanted to know if certain aspects of the plan such as concessions are necessary, and if aspects of the plan have been fully vetted with the public.

However, not everyone agreed with those characterizations of the plan. Trail Conservancy Executive Director Heidi Anderson said she has been active in the Zilker Collective, the group of 16 local businesses and nonprofits that worked with the design team to shape the vision plan. Anderson, who is also a resident of the Zilker neighborhood, pushed back on criticism of the plan. She said the community needed an outside party to sift through the “overwhelming data and community input” to put together a comprehensive plan for the best use of the space.

“Zilker Park is a municipal park,” Anderson said. “It is meant for the use and recreation of the people in this city. ”

After the public comment closed, Cottam Sajbel read aloud a proposed resolution that would have recommended City Council give equal time to the Rewilding Plan as an alternative to the city vision plan, and create a special parks citizen task force to jointly consider the future of Austin’s metropolitan regional parks.

Commissioner Kathryn Flowers indicated she would not support the resolution because it would interfere with the already established process. She said some voices were not heard during the public testimony that evening, including those from District 4, which she represents.

“They don’t feel like Zilker Park is for them,” Flowers said. “This park is not their park. It just very much upsets me that equity and inclusion is brought up to support an argument by people who are not the people who are historically marginalized by these processes.”

Cottam Sajbel attempted to address language questions raised by other commissioners, but the commission needed to hear another presentation and there wasn’t sufficient time. She withdrew the resolution for the time being and said she would consider a special called meeting in order to address it. In the meantime, a recommendation by the board has been put on hold.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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