Two of Houston’s heaviest-hitting business groups — the Greater Houston Partnership and the Quality of Life Coalition — are promoting an ambitious master plan to develop land along 10 of Harris County’s major bayous, creating an enormous system of “linear parks.”
With a potential half-billion-dollar price tag, the Houston Bayou Greenway Initiative would include almost 250 miles of new or upgraded hike-and-bike trails, not to mention canoe trails and more than 50 new parks that would do double duty as flood-retention basins or wetlands that improve the quality of the city’s groundwater.
“Two hundred and fifty miles!” exults developer Ed Wulfe, who represents both the Partnership and the Quality of Life Coalition. “That’s the distance from here to Dallas!”
The Bayou Greenway would be the biggest parks initiative in Houston’s history, says Tom Bacon, president of the Houston Parks Board, and would add desperately needed greenspace to neighborhoods widely spread across Harris County.
How much would it all cost? Roksan Okan-Vick, executive director of the Houston Parks Board, offers a rough estimate in “big round numbers:” $255 million to acquire land for the trails, build them and landscape them with native trees and plants, plus $240 million to add the 50 parks.
The Greenway would be a patchwork of projects carried out by hundreds of parties: city, county, state and federal agencies; nonprofits; municipal utility districts; Tax-Increment Reinvestment Zones; neighborhood groups; private developers; and private philanthropists.
I love the sound of this, I’m just not clear on what it means. The main question, of course, is “How will this be paid for?” For that,we go to the Houston Parks Board:
The Greater Houston Partnership will take the Bayou Greenway Initiative to our elected representatives in the coming months to secure support, and hopefully obtain funding commitments over the next two to three budget cycles. As that process moves forward, HPB will continue to work with the community, increase its partnerships with other bayou organizations, continue on-going communication with its public partners, and pursue private funding opportunities.
In other words, this is still more wish list than anything else. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I love the vision, and I hope to see it come about. There’s still a lot that needs to fall into place for it, and no guarantees that any of it will happen. Click that last link to see a map of the proposed new trails, and to find an email address for Roksan Okan-Vick if you want to get involved.
Big dream and pretty big price tag.
But since it is a strategic plan that would benefit the city for many, many decades and help promote more use of greenspace in Houston I support it. Albeit depending on the nature of funding.