The TIRZ, Parks, and the Texas Constitution

Feb. 27, 2015

Here’s the report from the Feb. 25, 2015, Uptown TIRZ 16 board meeting about when the once-a-boat launch on Buffalo Bayou  in Memorial Park at Woodway might be reopened.

Please note that Texas constitution guarantees the right of the people to access navigable waterways through public land.

The fenced-off Parks and Wildlife Paddling Trail takeout, referred to by the TIRZ as the “Woodway outfall,” is in need of a guardrail above a steep drop-off, parking reserved for the handicapped, and a gate that allows the park area to be closed at night, according to Sarah Newbery, the TIRZ 16 project director for Memorial Park.

The bayou access point on public land west of Loop 610 has been surrounded by a locked, curtained fence and closed to the public without explanation for almost a year since construction and landscaping were completed on the $1.36 million “erosion control” and drainage improvement project. The larger park area, known as the Old Archery Range, has been closed without explanation for nearly a decade.

The Houston Parks and Recreation Department is reviewing plans for the guardrail, parking, and permanent access gate for the former boat launch, Newbery told the board members meeting on the seventeenth floor of 1980 Post Oak in the Galleria. The TIRZ expects to send the plans out to bids in April and to finish construction by August, Newbery reported.

There will be a sign on the site by next week explaining all this to the public, said Newbery.

But why should the public not have access to the bayou through the park now, since there appears to be no legal or even safety reason why this part of the park should not be open in the meantime? The parks department could erect a temporary guardrail above any drop-off it deems dangerous, as it has done in Buffalo Bayou Park. There’s already a gate and a parking lot.

Read the rest of this story.

Uptown TIRZ Board to Meet: Is the Closed Woodway Not-A-Boat Launch on the Agenda?

Feb. 24, 2015

Is anybody really planning to build handrails or a parking lot to make our $1.36 million once-upon-a-time boat launch in Memorial Park “safe” for the public to use again?

We’ll find out Wednesday, Feb. 25, at the regular meeting of the board of the Uptown Development Authority/ TIRZ 16, which is supposed to be funding further improvements (with our tax money) to the site reconstructed  last year on Buffalo Bayou at Woodway. Project planners somehow forgot to include those user-friendly details when they designed the new drainage outfall “erosion control” project, according to the TIRZ and city parks department.

However, the new not-a-boat launch, with its long sloping ramp, looks perfectly usable to a lot of people, despite usually being covered in mud. But the city parks department says no, it’s not safe and the parking isn’t exactly right, so the area remains closed even after construction was completed about a year ago.

The board meeting of the Uptown TIRZ/Development Authority takes place Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in Suite 1700, 1980 Post Oak Boulevard.

Notice of TIRZ 16/Uptown Development Authority board meeting posted on City Hall bulletin board.

Notice of TIRZ 16/Uptown Development Authority board meeting posted on City Hall bulletin board.

An official Texas Parks and Wildlife Paddling Trail takeout, the formerly wooded ravine in what’s known as the Old Archery Range west of Loop 610 has been closed to the public for almost two years while trees were cleared, slopes dug out, and a massive outfall installed. The landscaped, irrigated project, described by the TIRZ as a drainage and “erosion control” project, was completed almost a year ago but the curtained, heavy-duty fence and gate remain locked.

SWA Group did the landscaping and AECOM the engineering design.

The once-a-boat-launch is the closest official public access for paddlers to float down Buffalo Bayou through the historic nature area that the City of Houston and the Harris County Flood Control District plan to destroy. Known as the Memorial Park Demonstration Project, the $6 million proposal to bulldoze the riparian forest, dredge and channelize this relatively untouched stretch of bayou has the support of the Bayou Preservation Association, the Memorial Park Conservancy, and the Buffalo Bayou Partnership.

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Update On the Not-A-Boat Launch In Memorial Park at Woodway

Feb. 9, 2015

Rumors have been flying across the concrete prairie and through the riparian woods of Buffalo Bayou that what was once a popular boat launch in Memorial Park at Woodway will be opened again to the public maybe by March or April.

And while we have determined that there is not actually a definite plan yet for opening the once-a-boat-launch, we can confirm that there may be some plans eventually to possibly appropriate some money to build handrails for safety and handicapped access, a proper parking lot, and some other stuff that city officials claim are required to make the longtime, popular no-longer-a boat-launch safe again for the public.

The Uptown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) 16, which in 2013 expanded to include Memorial Park, will consider funding the improvements “required to open the area as a public access point to the bayou,” Sarah Newbery, Memorial Park project director for the TIRZ 16, said in an email. This budget decision will happen at the next board of directors meeting on February 25, 2015, at 3:30 p.m. in Suite 1700, 1980 Post Oak Boulevard, said Newbery.

Why an unelected semi-private entity controls our public park, we don’t know. But the Uptown TIRZ meeting notices and agenda are posted 72 hours prior to the meeting at the Houston City Hall Public Bulletin Board, at the rear entrance of the City Hall Annex, 900 Bagby. So go downtown and park and find the bulletin board and look on it to see what’s on the agenda. There does not seem to be an online notice.

We can tell you that the Uptown TIRZ 16 2015-2019 Capital Improvement Plan includes nothing for the Woodway “drainage/erosion control” project, not even for maintenance, which is a constant problem, since the badly designed (AECOM) outfall collects mud. However, the TIRZ 16 2015 CIP budget includes $9.5 million for “Memorial Park/Buffalo Bayou.”

Read the rest of this update.

The drainage outfall but not a boat launch covered with mud in Memorial Park at Woodway. Photo by Bill Heins on February 16, 2015.

The drainage outfall but not a boat launch covered with mud in Memorial Park at Woodway. Photo by Bill Heins on January 16, 2015.

Update on the Plan to Bulldoze the Riparian Zone, Dredge, and Channelize Wild Buffalo Bayou

Yellow-crowned Night Heron by Frank X. Tolbert 2.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron by Frank X. Tolbert 2.

Feb. 8, 2015

The Army Corps of Engineers reports that it is continuing to supply the Harris County Flood Control District with their comments on the Flood Control District’s responses to the public comments on the district’s application for a federal permit.

Dwayne Johnson, regulatory project manager for the Galveston District office of the Corps, wrote in an email to Save Buffalo Bayou on Jan. 20, 2015, that the Corps expects to have a response and a possible new Public Notice about the permit application within thirty to sixty days. The new Public Notice would request new public comments only on the changes to the project plans made since the original Public Notice last April, said Johnson.

A federal Clean Water Act permit is required for the project because it will dredge and fill navigable waters of the United States. The Corps is responsible for that. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality must certify that the Corps’ permit meets Texas Surface Water Quality Standards. The Environmental Protection Agency also has the authority under the Clean Water Act to overrule a federal permit, although the EPA has rarely done that.

In addition, the Houston City Council, as the governing body for Memorial Park, must give public notice, hold a hearing, and vote on whether the project is a proper use or taking of public parkland under Ch. 26 of the state Parks and Wildlife Code.

Memorial Park has some protection from the deeds establishing the park. The Hogg Family, which sold the parkland to the city at cost in the early 1920s, set up the multiple deeds so that ownership of the park reverts to their heirs if the land is used for other than park purposes. These reversionary rights have been left to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

Plus, the City of Houston Floodplain Management Office must issue a development permit for the project because it involves construction activity within a city floodplain.

Find out what you can do.

But It’s Best to Leave the Bayou Alone, Says BPA’s Water Quality Director

Feb. 5, 2015

We lost track of the number of times our jaws dropped listening to Steve Hupp present the Bayou Preservation Association’s argument for destroying one of the last natural stretches of Buffalo Bayou in Houston.

Hupp, who was speaking to the Briar Forest Super Neighborhood council on Jan. 20, is the water quality director for the BPA, which was founded in the 1960s to protect the natural banks of Buffalo Bayou from the bulldozers of the Harris County Flood Control District. Hupp lamented that a representative of Flood Control wasn’t there to help him make his case for bulldozing and dredging some 80 percent of a healthy stretch of our wild, southern bayou for more than a mile in and around our public Memorial Park, including the great cliffs of the Hogg Bird Sanctuary. This $6 million boondoggle, touted as “bank restoration and stabilization,” is called the Memorial Park Demonstration Project (MPDP). Demonstrating exactly the wrong thing to do for erosion control by razing the riparian buffer, the project will destroy the bayou’s ecosystem. According to the BPA, the bayou will be re-engineered to “a more natural state.”

Briar Forest, which is south of Buffalo Bayou between Gessner, Westheimer, and Dairy Ashford, has been fighting its own battle with Flood Control over a plan to destroy a significant amount of forest to create stormwater detention basins.

City Council Member Oliver Pennington was at the meeting. Pennington, who is running for mayor, represents District G, which includes Briar Forest way out there and much closer into town, the south bank of Buffalo Bayou in the “bank restoration” project area. The south bank, which is half of the project, is owned entirely by the River Oaks Country Club, founded in 1924, of which Pennington is a member and which is donating $2 million or one-third of the projected cost of the “stabilization” project. The club is in the process of digging up and rebuilding its golf course, which over the decades has encroached on what was once thick riparian forest, moving closer and closer to the edges of the high banks of the bayou.

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An aerial photo taken in 1953 of Buffalo Bayou and surrounding riparian forest in the project area.

An aerial photo taken in 1953 of Buffalo Bayou and surrounding riparian forest in the project area.