Green Renaissance Reach Park Deserts?

040 :: winter 16 WILL HOUSTON’S GREEN RENAISSANCE REACH PARK DESERTS? BY SHERYL TUCKER DE VAZQUEZ “ Jay looks out across the bayou before him. It is little more than a narrow, muddy strip of water ﬂowing some thirty feet below street level …. There are thick, unkempt weeds choked up on the banks of In the last year, Houston has received the water, crawling up the cement pilings that hold national acclaim from design critics for the reinvention of its parks: “the city to watch,” Main Street overhead, and save for a dim yellow bulb says Alexandra Lange; “a paradise under the expressway,” says Karrie Jacobs; and “a bit of at the foot of a small wooden pier, Allen’s Landing nirvana,” says Mark Lamster. Echoing this praise, the Cultural Landscape Foundation is complete blackness.” held a national conference in Houston in March 2016 celebrating our “big green transformation.” But that conference closed with A seedy Bufalo Bayou, circa 1980s, captured in a sobering panel on equity. Has Houston’s Houston native Atica Locke’s crime novel Black green makeover only reached some neighbor- Water Rising (HarperColins, 2009), is thankfuly hoods? What about those parts of Houston a distant memory. Yet in exploring stretches of that have been lef behind? In East Houston, Hals and Greens Bayous in East Houston for this open and vacant spaces abound, but commu- article, I encountered areas that recal Locke’s nities are isolated and cut of from al types of description, places that manage to be both lush resources, including high-quality parks. And and bleak. Just steps away from parking at a Hals to the southwest, especialy in Gulfon and Bayou access point, I came upon a wel-traveled Sharpstown, too many families are packed wooden footbridge to a school, and the sound into 1970s apartment complexes with litle to of water fowing below beckoned me toward the no park access in walking distance. coolness of a low-hanging tree canopy. But the But with the Bayou Greenways 2020, promise of natural beauty and wildlife slowly which promises to enhance access in East dissipated as I continued on a path that became Houston, and with an expansion of the SPARK encumbered with tree branches, the fotsam and School Park Program, which wil create new jetsam of a nearby dump, and the stench of rot- park places in the Sharpstown neighborhoods ting garbage that became so overpowering I had to the southwest, we may see a more inclusive to turn around and return to my car. transformation. PHOTO BY ALLYN WEST ALLYN BY PHOTO Footbridge along Halls Bayou :: 041 WILL HOUSTON’S GREEN RENAISSANCE EAST HOUSTON SHARPSTOWN A NEW PARK EQUITY Led by the nonproft Houston Parks Board, noted that the way people generaly use parks that 70 percent of the respondents were white Bayou Greenways 2020 intends to take advan- has evolved over time. More stationary park uses, residents with incomes over $70,000 per year tage of Houston’s “natural infrastructure” by such as picnics and balgames, have given way to living in some of the greenest sectors of Houston. transforming the 3,000 acres of green space walking, jogging, and rolerblading along park Supported and funded by the Parks Department, along Houston’s 150 miles of bayous into a con- peripheries. For those without big backyards a folow-up survey targeting African-American tinuous park. Te development of greenways or country club memberships, a park stil con- and Hispanic communities was conducted by along Houston’s bayous holds the promise jures images of manicured lawns doted with Rice University and showed a very diferent of a new park equity in Houston. Once com- shade trees and picnic tables alongside grils, hierarchy of desires for public parks. Minority pleted, the greenways should put 60 percent of while others envision open green felds set up respondents were more pragmatic in their Houstonians within 1.5 miles of public green for soccer or basebal games, and facilities with concerns: upgrade of existing facilities, beter space, whereas today 55 percent of Houston’s outdoor swimming pools. How can the bayou bathrooms, park safety and maintenance, more parkland is concentrated in three major blocks greenways be inclusive of al these diferent ver- programs, and beter parking were top concerns. of the 610 Loop. Afer the city’s bond approval sions of a park? Connectivity was at the botom of the list, with of the 2020 Initiative, Roksam Okan-Vick, When the Bayou Greenways team and city just 0.6 percent of the respondents listing it former executive director of the Houston Parks ofcials discuss the greenways, they focus on as a desire. Te Rice researchers concluded by Board, reiterated this point: “Our mission is to them as places of mobility: 1) as a looping trail underscoring “the need to be inclusive of voices secure the equitable distribution of parkland primarily for recreation and exercise, and 2) as typicaly under-represented in planning pro- for our entire region, and these bayous have no a means to access specifc destinations, from cesses, namely those of racial minorities and boundaries, connecting neighbor to neighbor schools and transit stations, to job centers and low-income populations. In Houston, particu- and homes to businesses throughout our area.” even grocery stores. Te experientialy rich lar efort must be made to beter existing parks But what does “equitable distribution of connectivity ofered by the greenways wil cer- infrastructure in these communities.” parkland” mean in the country’s most diverse tainly atract higher-income milennials to As the greenways dramaticaly increase the city? For that mater, what does “park” mean? Houston. A Parks Department survey showed city’s park acreage, questions emerge. Wil they Is it enough to have accessible green space or that Houstonians most desired “connectivity” also mediate the efects of Houston’s sprawl on do parks require infrastructure for organized in their public green spaces, but the results of low-income residents like those in East Houston, activities? Te Houston Parks Department has the survey were chalenged when it was revealed where distance limits their access to opportunity? MAP COURTESY COMMUNITY DESIGN RESOURCE CENTER RESOURCE DESIGN COMMUNITY COURTESY MAP Little York Rd Greens Bayou Halls Bayou Mesa Rd Mesa Tidwell Rd Tidwell Transit Center T Brock Park Lee Rd 042 :: How much public green space wil the greenways deliver to a densely populated and heavily developed Sharpstown area in Houston’s southwest? Answers to such questions require recogniz- ing each bayou and its adjacent neighborhoods E Houston Rd Houston E as unique, interconnected systems. Accordingly, the Parks Board has commissioned a diferent CR Railroad | Beaumont Hwy landscape architecture team to address the specifc opportunities and chalenges of each bayou-and-neighborhood nexus. In areas beyond the paved trails of the greenways, only signage and furnishings wil be uniformly developed throughout the network. Another consideration is the fact that the T Maxey Rd Transit Center greenways may read as linear elements on a map, but they are actualy fairly wide—50 feet wide LEGEND in more urban areas and up to 100 feet wide in suburban communities. Tey have the poten- Little York Rd Existing Park Existing Bike Trail tial to widen in places to become pul-out parks Proposed Bike Trail that could tie into existing public amenities like T Transit Center Greens Bayou YMCAs or smaler public parks. Others could be used as event spaces or sites for art instalations. Halls Bayou Tere are as many versions of the pul-out park as there are neighborhoods. Te Parks Board Rd Mesa Tidwell Rd sees them as evolving organicaly over time as Tidwell Transit Center they are designed and funded by the communi- T ties themselves. Brock Park Lee Rd East Houston THE RIBBON IN THE WOODS Rd Houston E Te landscape architecture frm Clark Condon CR Railroad | Beaumont Hwy Associates was awarded the design of Greens and Hals Bayous on the northeast side. Along the mostly riparian Hals Bayou in North that enclose it on three sides. Although a Kinder MOLICK PETER BY PHOTO MAIN. ADELLE BY MAP Houston, the Parks Board purchased land to fl Institute report shows that the neighborhood has in the “gaps” from Brock Park to Jensen Drive, among the fewest number of cars per household creating a continuous greenway linking the in Houston, the community was designed with Eastex/Jenson, East Litle York/Homestead, and car use in mind: it consists mostly of single-fam- East Houston neighborhoods. ily homes in discrete suburban tract subdivisions T Maxey Rd Transit Center East Houston (not to be mistaken for clustered on the western side of the neighbor- EaDo or East End) is a predominantlyLEGEND African- hood. To the south is a large industrial park and American and Hispanic community in Houston’s Existing Parkto the northwest is Brock Park, a municipal golf northeast quadrangle between the Loop Existingand Bikecourse. Trail In addition, East Houston has six public Proposed Bike Trail Beltway 8. With only 19,000 residents T over Transit 11 Centerparks and three SPARK parks. Te greenways wil square miles, East Houston is sparsely popu- add 439 acres of publicly accessible greenspace to lated and heavily treed — so much so that the the East Houston Super Neighborhood. Tough Parks Board dubbed Hals Bayou “the ribbon in METRO bus routes are limited in the neighbor- the woods.” Located on the outer periphery of hood, buses do run north-south along Mesa Drive, Houston, the neighborhood is further isolated the main commercial corridor, and east-west by railroad, utility, and highway infrastructure along Tidwel.

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