Memorial Park plan aims to protect foliage, sportsBy MIKE SNYDER
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
RESOURCES• Graphic: Map of park plan
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Memorial Park, central Houston's largest oasis of green, has fallen victim to
its increasing popularity, with millions of visitors each year eroding its
grounds and threading unplanned bike trails through its woods.
Several groups of supporters hope to reclaim the park by gradually replacing its
organized sports facilities with a more open, natural landscape as envisioned by
its founders.
A proposal unveiled this week seeks to balance the desires of the park's
recreational users with the need to protect its foliage and wildlife --
enhancing what the plan calls a "green haven in the midst of the city."
Memorial Park was established in 1924 to honor the World War I doughboys who
trained amid its pines and oaks at Camp Logan before shipping off to European
battlefields. Today, in a city starved for parklands, it is feeling the stress
of its success.
Runners, walkers, equestrians, bicyclists, golfers, tennis players, softball
teams and soccer enthusiasts -- an estimated 4 million of them a year -- flock
to the park's trails, fields, courts and fairways. Park advocates say the heavy
use is taking its toll in the form of erosion, especially along trails favored
by off-road bicyclists on the park's south side.
The health of Memorial's cherished forests, meanwhile, has suffered from
invasive species that have inhibited the growth of new trees.
"We'd like to take the park back to a more natural state over the next 20 to 30
years," said Claire Caudill, the executive director of the Memorial Park
Conservancy, a nonprofit park protection group.
It was that vision of a large natural park that prompted philanthropist Ima Hogg
and her brothers to sell the park's original 1,500 acres to the city in 1924 for
about $650,000 -- their cost plus taxes, according to Memorial Park: A Priceless
Legacy, by Sarah H. Emmott.
The book quotes a newspaper article of the time, which reported that the new
park was "to be kept in the wild state, almost entirely, and made a sanctuary
for birds, small game, wild flowers, holly and whatever else needs protection
against man."
To help restore these conditions, the new proposal -- the Memorial Park
Conservation Master Plan -- calls for the city to acquire other land near the
park to move the tennis center, six baseball/softball fields and two soccer
fields. The golf course would remain in the park.
At a public meeting Monday night, city officials and consultants who developed
the plan sought to assure users of the sports facilities that none would be
moved any time soon. The move, they said, is contingent on the city's finding
money and land within a reasonable distance to develop new, improved facilities.
"Some of these changes should take time," said Glenda Barrett, the executive
director of the Park People, a nonprofit park advocacy group.
The only moves funded so far are those of the police equestrian-canine training
center -- now in a strip of the park west of Loop 610 -- and the maintenance
facility in the park's southeast corner near Buffalo Bayou. The former will be
moved by 2005 and the latter by 2007, city officials said.
Barrett acknowledged that in a time of tight municipal budgets and difficult
fund raising, prospects for raising the needed money might appear bleak. But she
and others said the existence of a master plan will encourage donors.
The plan was developed over the past 2 1/2 years by a Philadelphia landscape
architectural firm, Wallace Roberts and Todd, in consultation with the city, the
conservancy and the Houston Parks Board. It will undergo further review and
public comment before being submitted to City Council this summer.
Emblematic of the plan is its proposal for the creation of a "picnic meadow," a
broad swath of green space south of Memorial Drive on a site now occupied by
sports fields. Caudill said the meadow could be comparable to the Great Lawn in
New York's Central Park -- an undeveloped space for picnicking, kite-flying and
pickup ball games.
In addition to a general effort to naturalize the park, the plan calls for
improving pedestrian access from Memorial Drive, building a canoe launch site
off Woodway west of Loop 610, and establishing a tree nursery to help reforest
the park. The proposal also would create new trails for bicyclists, pedestrians
and equestrians on the park's north side while closing some of those on the more
environmentally sensitive south side.
The off-road bike issue has been particularly contentious. Since the early
1980s, when enthusiasts of the sport began hacking out trails through the woods
on the park's south side, bicyclists have clashed with city officials and
conservationists over park access.
Caudill, the Memorial Park Conservancy official, pointed out sites on the south
side where former biking trails have become deep ravines as the earth gradually
gave way.
"The ground here is real soft," she said. "You sweep the leaf litter off and it
just disappears."
Jeff Nielsen, president of the Greater Houston Off-Road Biking Association, said
development of the master plan had provided a forum for bicyclists and park
groups to work out their differences.
"We've pretty much worked out an agreement where both sides have kind of gotten
what they want," he said.
Caudill's group has taken on the responsibility of protecting Memorial Park, a
burden borne by Ima Hogg until her death in 1975. Hogg fended off numerous
attempted encroachments on the park, including a proposal in the late 1950s to
build the Astrodome within its boundaries.
Advocates say Hogg's spirit should guide city officials and others as they
finish the master plan and work to realize its vision.
"It's very unusual to have such a large green space in the heart of a city,"
said Barrett of the Park People. "It's such a treasure."
The plan is available online at www.hpbinc.org.


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