In August of 2023, after three years of planning and many thousands of dollars, City Council was forced to scrap its comprehensive Zilker Park Vision Plan, amid a bitter battle waged by detractors and the park’s surrounding residents. But the million or so visitors to the park have not flagged in the years since, and many of the issues identified with the vision plan have only persisted: principally, severe erosion stemming from overflow parking and recreational trail use.
“It’s not lost on any of us — especially those of us up here that know some of the issues in the park that have been there over the years — that those will need to be addressed at some point,” said Council Member Paige Ellis in a meeting of Council’s Climate, Water, and Parks Committee last week. Austin’s Parks and Recreation (PARD) and Watershed Protection departments presented a slew of projects aimed at mitigating that erosion, but warned that they lack the necessary funding.
“Our current plans, in terms of short- and midterm efforts, are a lighter touch and doing what we can with the limited resources we have,” explained Janna Renfro, managing engineer with watershed protection. She added that PARD and Watershed Protection have a “limited ability to make larger term plans and decisions about the area,” so the plan is “keeping with the maintenance and making improvements within those constraints that we have.”
“In the absence of having a vision plan for the park as a whole, we look to some other guiding documents for reference,” explained Lindsey Machamer, division manager for park development with PARD. Those include the 2009 Barton Springs Pool Master Plan, the 2019 Zilker Park Working Group report, and a piece of the defunct vision plan itself – the natural resources inventory, published by the consultant Siglo Group in 2021.
Amid other capital improvements to the park — like the Zilker Park Clubhouse rehabilitation, which will enter the bidding phase this fall, the Joan Means Khabele Bathhouse rehabilitation aiming for a partial opening this fall, and a maintenance barn slated for completion in mid 2026 — PARD has been planning some erosion mitigation projects for more than a decade. Others have arisen from emergencies related to erosion, like a section of the trail falling into the water in 2018. (One consensus item from the vision plan has survived. That is a recommended by Mayor Kirk Watson to be considered as a standalone improvement for a shuttle on Stratford Drive from free two-hour offsite parking to the park in order to reduce parking on the polo fields. It has been successful, reducing parking there by 50 percent and allowing it only on weekends and for events. From Memorial Day through Labor Day this year, the shuttle transported over 7,000 riders.)
The north and south banks of Barton Creek have different needs and rank differently in the parks department funding priorities. The north bank has mostly ecological damage from recreational use resulting in dry, compacted soil, exposed tree roots and erosion. The south bank has erosion that PARD deems “life-threatening,” for example, a tall bank right next to the hike-and-bike trail that carries a fall risk for pedestrians. Life-threatening erosion, of course, is a higher priority for funding.
“Our projects are driven by our strategic plan, which asks us to address the worst problems first, which are generally the life safety issues,” said Renfro. “We would love to be partners in a creekwide vision plan that addresses some of these issues ecologically. Water quality is also part of our mission area. I think that it’s a planning issue and a funding issue.”
After 230 feet of the trail’s bank fell into Barton Creek in 2018 during flooding, PARD undertook an emergency project to install a storm drain under the trail, stabilize the waterline, and rebuild that section of trail. That project will finish by the end of 2025, and has cost about $6 million total. Another emergency project this year used PARD’s remaining 2018 bond funds to repair a structure at Lou Neff Point that had foundation cracks due to erosion.
But those bond funds have run out, and there are still problems from more than a decade ago that PARD is trying to fix.
One of the oldest, from the 2009 pool plan, is the Sunken Gardens rehabilitation project, which still needs $9 million more in funding to be finished. Sunken Gardens, built in 1937 at the Old Mill Spring, is one of three main springs surrounding Barton Springs, along with Eliza Springs and Upper Barton Springs. The project would stabilize an outfall that goes into Barton Creek down a tall bank that is eroding. PARD is asking for that project to be funded in its wishlist for the 2026 bond package.
Considering the tight budget season the city is having, Council Member Ryan Alter seemed to advocate for PARD implementing more public education, rather than funding more construction, to change erosion-contributing behavior.
“We’re having the conversation around the entirety of the city’s needs as relates to the bond,” said Alter. “But I would love to have natural systems put in place that direct people to ‘this is where you can access,’ and not continue the harm that we’re doing to that area. I’d hate to wait another six years and be talking about this having gotten worse, when we could have done more cost effective things.”
Some public speakers, however, urged the city to solicit more funding from its nonprofit partners, rather than the taxpayers.
Two speakers reflected some of the ire that ended the Zilker comprehensive vision plan in 2023 with a focus on criticism of the city’s nonprofit partners that operate within the park.
Chris Flores, a resident of District 10, said “We have invited a commercializer system to operate, presumably to fund our parks. It has failed. The flow of funds are going from city coffers to the nonprofits, not the other way around.”
“We’re at a place where you are asking the taxpayers to pay more money for city basics,” said Mark May, a District 5 resident. “Why can’t our nonprofit partners do more? I’m not saying (Austin Parks Foundation) does no good work, or that the nonprofit model is fundamentally unsound. I am saying that this nonprofit model with (Austin Parks Foundation) is broken right now, and I’m asking you to take a step to fix it. I challenge you all to treat the nonprofit partners no better than you treat your own voters and ask them to do more.”
The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here.