Parks board asks City Council to review why boating concession ordinance exempted community input

The Parks and Recreation Board wants City Council to reexamine, and possibly rescind, a 2019 ordinance allowing an adventure excursion company to operate a boating concession in East Austin without going through a public process.

The company, called the Expedition School, is poised to begin building out its concession operations along Lady Bird Lake’s north shore at Festival Beach in East Austin, which is part of the Holly Shores/Edward Rendon Sr. Master Plan.

But the parks board, which on Monday unanimously approved a resolution brought by Board Member Holly Reed, is requesting a pause in the permitting process to review and determine whether the city was justified in exempting a city code that requires public input on proposed concessions on city parkland.

The board’s action was in response to the park’s area neighbors and other activists who spoke at the board’s meeting last month and again on Monday in opposition to a commercial business at the park.

The Expedition School has operated at two different Festival Beach sites as an instructional facility since 2006 and is slated to expand its operations with a new boat dock in the park’s lagoon area. At the time Council passed the 2019 ordinance, the school held an instructor contract with the city, which did not permit it to operate a concession for boat rentals. The school has since transitioned to a nonprofit as part of its effort to becoming a commercial vendor.

Neighbors and stakeholders who participated in drafting the Holly Shores/Edward Rendon Sr. Master Plan, which Council approved in 2014, oppose the concession, which many only recently learned about. They point to the concession operation as another example of how gentrification in East Austin threatens to erase Mexican Americans’ historic and cultural presence in the community.

Latino organizations, such as HABLA, La Raza Roundtable and PODER, also stand opposed to commercializing the park, as well as Rewild ATX and Free Zilker.

“Where is the equity if we’re not invited, much less present, when these types of initiatives (are introduced)?” asked Ana Aguirre, a resident of District 2. “Communities of color should not continue to be an afterthought.” Aguirre, who is the president of the Austin Neighborhoods Council, emphasized that she was speaking in her personal capacity.

The Expedition School’s representative, Katherine Nicely, a planning consultant with Metcalfe Wolff Stuart & Williams, told the board that her client has done everything the city has asked of it and is “happy to be as transparent as possible.”

The board’s meeting materials included letters from individuals and organizations both opposed and in support of the Expedition School’s concession at the park.

David Kinsey of the newly formed Holly Neighborhood Association told the board that a majority of association members expressed support of the concession in a survey.

Former Council Member Sabino “Pio” Renteria, testifying remotely, told the board he sponsored the resolution to provide the area with better access to a site where they can rent a canoe or kayak without having to travel west of I-35, where the majority of boating concessions are located. Renteria also applauded the school’s work with people with disabilities.

Lifelong East Austin resident Elisa Rendon Montoya, vice chair of the East Town Lake Citizens Neighborhood Association, told the board she and others have spent years trying to retain the peaceful and tranquil nature of the park without commercial businesses “encroaching” on the park named after her father. “I am one of the dinosaurs that have worked many, many years, trying to preserve this park for our community, for the city of Austin,” she said.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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Posted In: Parks, District 3