Parks

The region has a surprising variety of parks – skate parks, dog parks, shooting ranges, golf courses, a velodrome, botanical gardens, and swimming pools. Whenever there is water – a lake, a creek, a bay, or the Gulf of Mexico, there is a park nearby. Unfortunately, there are not enough parks. A 2001 survey by the Trust for Public Land estimated that the Houston Galveston Region needed more than 12,000 additional acres of park space and that buying and improving that much land would cost approximately $350 million. The study also reported that $250 million was needed for improvements to existing parks.

The region’s growth makes the lack of parks a challenging problem. There are more and more people to use parks but less and less open space for park acquisition.

Roksan Okan-Vick, executive director of the Houston Parks Board, a non-profit corporation that works with the city on parks acquisition, said, “We are concentrating on acquiring land now, while it is still available. We will worry about improving it later.”

In 2005, the Parks Board completed the first step of an ambitious campaign to acquire the eight square miles (5,120 acres) of new park space called for in the city’s master plan. It used GIS mapping techniques to assess every parcel within Houston’s extra-territorial jurisdiction and determine a tract’s suitability for park use. From this, it has identified a “target” list of properties for possible acquisition.

Strategies for increasing park space include using park, recreation, and open spaces for storm water management; brownfield and landfill reclamation; historic preservation; and wildlife and natural habitat protection. Locally, parks departments, the flood control district, counties, schools, civic clubs, and a variety of non-profit groups are engaged in acquiring or improving parks.

On the local level, there was some progress in 2005. Improvements to Tony Marron Park on Buffalo Bayou on Houston’s East Side were completed. The park had been acquired many years before, but was unimproved. Now it has hills and swales, walking trails, ball fields, a playground, a covered picnic pavilion, a water feature, restroom facilities, and a multitude of trees. That project was conceived in 2001, and involved the city of Houston, Harris County Precinct 2, corporate donors, and the Parks People. Exxon Mobil contributed $100,000 to the project.

The restoration of Hermann Park by the Hermann Park Conservancy won several awards.

The Park People’s Greenway Trails Map of Greater Houston and Harris County was published. The map shows bikers and hikers the more than 500 miles of greenway, or off-street, trails in the area.

However, the state parks are in critical condition. In December, it was announced that 73 more jobs at state parks would be cut, and that many parks would reduce operating hours. The current budget crisis for state parks is exacerbated by the expense of sheltering people displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, damage to the parks from Rita, and use of state park staff in recovery efforts, but the crisis really is the result of long term under-funding of state parks.

George Bristol, president of the Texas Coalition for Conservation, a park advocacy group, alleges that the state legislature has created a “third-world” status for parks. He reports that for a number of years Texas has been 49th among the 50 states in park funding. The funds budgeted for state parks decreased by $2 million for 2006 even though park expenses keep increasing.

Texas Parks already suffer from dilapidated park facilities, many of which were built in the 1930s by Civilian Conservation Corps workers. Even before the December budget cuts, more than 100 staff positions were unfilled.

State parks are used heavily by local residents and by tourists. Research commissioned by the Texas Coalition for Conservation shows that state parks annually generate over $1.25 billion in economic activity and that 10 million visitors go to state parks each year.

One consequence of the shortage of park funding is that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is transferring certain parks to local entities. Lake Houston State Park, a 5,000-acre park thirty miles north of Houston, is to be transferred to the City of Houston. The park is between New Caney and Splendora and includes the former Girl Scout camp, Peach Creek Ranch.

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