COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: AFTER THE BAYOU FLOODS 
“I’ve been riding the trail along the Bayou for 6 years and I’d say the flood debris problem has been greatly reduced of late. That might just be a result of the drought, but certainly the city has been quicker to send crews with fire hoses to wash the trail after floods.
Some part of me misses the mess, though . . . I knew where the debris would tend to accumulate after a period of high water and developed affectionate nicknames for each patch.
Why, I’d whistle as I passed through dysentery ditch, and marvel at cholera canyon. But MRSA meadows, now that was some goop, I tell ya . . .” [Patrick, commenting on Lookee What the Kinder Foundation’s $50M Is Gonna Help Build Along the Bayous] Illustration: Lulu
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Tag: Bayous and Waterways
So the city has agreed to hand over maintenance of all the new bayou trails ’n’ stuff to the Houston Parks Board — it was the one condition that the Kinder Foundation stipulated before it would agree to donate $50 million to the Bayou Greenways project. That donation became a done deal earlier today. This dough, says the Parks Board, is going to allow construction to begin before the end of 2014 on as many as 14 new sections of trail — including even more work along Brays Bayou in Mason Park in the East End, shown in this rendering from SWA Group.
THE CATCH IN KINDER FOUNDATION’S BAYOU GREENWAYS CASH GIVEAWAY 
It’s one thing to get the money to build a bunch of nice parks, and it’s another to keep them nice: Houston Chronicle reports that the Kinder Foundation isn’t convinced that the city will be able to pay for the maintenance of all those miles and miles of hike and bike trails and linear parks it’s setting up through the Bayou Greenways Project. That’s why — before the foundation agrees to donate the $50 million it’s dangling out there to the project — it wants the nonprofit Houston Parks Board to be put in charge of future upkeep: “Under the proposed arrangement, the city agrees to pay the park board up to $10 million a year for maintenance. Although the nonprofit likely will hire private companies and Harris County Flood Control to do some work, the city parks department would be the preferred contractor for the bulk of it, essentially bringing much of the funding back to city coffers. Additionally, the agreement includes an annual 20 percent contingency fund the board can use for capital improvement projects, such as installing new lights or replacing aging trails, or for disaster recovery after flooding or hurricanes.” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo of hike and bike trail construction on Brays Bayou: Allyn West
Last week, the city and the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to build almost 14 new miles of hike and bike trail — from I-45 to west of 288 — along Sims Bayou. The project, construction for which could begin as early as November, will cost about $7 million, and it will connect 7 city parks: Reveille Park, Stuart Park, Law Park, Sims Bayou Park, the County’s Hill at Sims Park, Scottcrest Park, and Townwood Park.
The first stretch to be built will be a 10-ft.-wide 3.1-mile span from I-45 to Stuart Park on Bellfort, just a few miles from Hobby Airport. Also included in the trail construction? The usual swag: Picnic tables and pavilions, benches, drinking fountains, lighting, and parking lots.
- Mayor Parker/U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers Announce Plans For New Hike And Bike Trail Along Sims Bayou [City of Houston]
- Sims Bayou [Bayou Greenways]
- Previously on Swamplot: Fine, Parks Board Tells Idylwood Residents, We Won’t Build a Parking Lot If You Really Don’t Want One, No Parking: Idylwood Residents Want Parks Board To Move Proposed Hike and Bike Lot Somewhere Else, Parks By You’s Feel-Good Campaign To Build More Bayou Parks by You, Enormous Plan To Build Bayou-Side Parks: The Movie
Photo of Sims Bayou: Allyn West
At a meeting yesterday, reps from the Houston Parks Board told reps from the Idylwood Civic Club that the HPB would agree to let alone that grassy knoll, shown here, where a trailhead providing access to the Brays Bayou hike and bike was to have been installed. Described in 2009 documents as “Sylvan Dell Parking Lot,” it appears that the proposed trailhead would have provided 19 off-street parking spaces, benches, lighting, a gazebo, and exercise equipment. Though those specs don’t really matter now: Houston Parks Board rep Jen Powis tells Swamplot that the Idylwood residents “chose to eliminate” the project.
Just about a mile as the trash floats along Brays Bayou from that sylvan site in Idylwood where the Houston Parks Board is considering building a parking lot, more work of the flood-mitigating Project Brays is underway. Here, near the intersection of Wheeler and Old Spanish Trail, the Harris County Flood Control District is widening the channel to help the bayou along, an act that will necessitate spending about $4.2 million to build a new 2-lane bridge.
According to the HCFCD, the existing bridge on Wheeler — shown in the photo here — isn’t nearly big enough and will need to be demolished. The new bridge, to be built during the next year or so, will extend Lidstone St. up and over the bayou to O.S.T., connecting the Gulfgate and Fonde Park neighborhoods just southeast of the Orange Show. Once the bridge is complete, more hike and bike trails will be installed.
You can see a project map and more photos after the jump:
Note: Read more about this story here.
First a Walmart, and now a parking lot? Some Idylwood residents are organizing opposition to a 20- or 30-space parking lot proposed for this site by the Houston Parks Board for the Bayou Greenways Project. The parking lot, presumably meant for users of the hike and bike trail to be built at some point along this stretch of Brays Bayou — which slithers beneath I-45 on its way toward U of H and the Med Center — would replace this sylvan knoll in the bayou-hugging ’hood where N. Macgregor Way curves into Sylvan Rd. But residents have some concerns . . .
WHAT’S BEST FOR BUFFALO BAYOU? 
Let it flow, or let it be? Environmentalists and the Harris County Flood Control District disagree — at least when it comes to the 1.5-mile stretch that contributes to the “jungly ecosystem” of the Hogg Bird Sanctuary in Memorial Park, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray. A “restoration” plan proposed by the flood controllers, explains Gray, “would change the bayou’s course in places, fill in an oxbow here, reinforce banks there, widen the bayou’s channel, raising and lowering landmasses and generally move an enormous amount of dirt. [They argue] that the proposed measures are desperately needed to reduce erosion and improve water quality.” They’d do it here as they did it at Meyer Park along Spring Creek, reports Gray. But the environmentalists don’t seem to consider that to have been a “restoration” project, really: “‘Look at that!” [Memorial Park Conservancy board member Katy Emde] told me, outraged, showing me a picture of Meyer Park on her phone. ‘There’s no diversity! It’s not natural! It’s not habitat! It’s horrifying.'” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo of Hogg Bird Sanctuary: Bayou Shuttle
FEARING THE YOGA DADS THE NEW HEIGHTS HIKE AND BIKE LINK WILL BRING 
The Houston Chronicle reports that the Bayou Greenways project is paying for a new 1.35-mile section hooking up the existing White Oak Bayou and Heights hike and bike trails. Part of completing this stretch will require replacing the bridge shown here, a burned-out trestle that butts up to the former Eureka Railyard. Psyched about this new link that, when completed in 2014, will get cyclists from Downtown all the way out to Antoine Dr., Houstonia’s John Nova Lomax still seems more than a little ambivalent about losing the blackened thing: “The eastern foot of that bridge has been a meditation zone / power spot of mine for the last few years, my own trash-strewn bayou-pungent pre- and post-work Eden. No more — soon it will teem with with yoga dads and crossfit maniacs and their occasionally ill-behaved pooches.” [Ultimate Heights; Houstonia; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Patrick Feller [license]
Yep, it was a costly mistake: A $300,000 fine was paid to the city on Friday with a cashier’s check signed by Bill Workman, the first-time developer who says a miscommunication with a subcontractor led to the clearing of almost an acre of trees and stuff near Little White Oak Bayou in Woodland Park.
Though neighbors accused Workman of ordering the slashing to improve the view of the 8 townhouses he is building on Wrightwood St., he denied those accusations, telling Swamplot in June that one of the reasons he chose the site for development was its proximity to the park. Seeing what happened, he says, left him “devastated.”
Apparently, the fine isn’t quite enough to satisfy Andrea Greer, who originally reported what she called “egregious clear-cutting” on her blog:
HOW TO PAY FOR THE CYPRESS CREEK GREENWAY PROJECT 
The Houston Parks Board, needing funding for the 40-mile Cypress Creek Greenway, commissioned a study that concluded that the Cypress Creek Greenway needs funding. Apparently, the creek that runs between IAH and Hwy. 290 is the only one of the 10 waterways involved in that 100-mile interconnected greenway plan that hasn’t identified where it’s getting its money; that’s where the study comes in. The Magnolia Potpourri’s Crystal Simmons explains: “Because [Harris County] funds are wrapped up in other projects, the study suggested creating a fundraising vehicle dedicated to generating funds specifically for the greenway’s planning, design and construction.” Now there’s an idea! And if that doesn’t cut it? “[L]ocal advocacy organizations including the Bayou Land Conservancy, the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce and the Cultural District have volunteered to continue publicizing the project.” [Magnolia Potpourri; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Cypress Creek Greenway Project via Facebook
THE WOODLAND PARK THINNING STORY THICKENS 
The backlash to the clearing of Woodland Park vegetation behind the 7 townhomes he’s building on Wrightwood St. seems to have encouraged first-time developer Bill Workman to make hardhat-in-hand rounds this week with local media: He’s given similar statements regretting the snafu to Hair Balls, KUHF, Click2Houston, and abc13. But more details are coming out that complicate a situation that Workman maintains resulted from a miscommunication with a subcontractor hired, he says, only to grade the site: Debris from what’s been reported to be 3/4 of an acre of parkland has been pushed down to the banks of Little White Oak Bayou, presenting a possible drainage problem — which, of course, the grading was undertaken in the first place to solve. And the claim that only invasive species had been removed doesn’t seem to be the case, either, reports the Houston Chronicle: “The Parks Department reported that the cleared property included some healthy trees,” write Erin Mulvaney and Mike Norris. (As many as 100, estimates abc13.) “Reforestation and replanting will be necessary, and erosion control and possible regrading of the site may be required, officials said. A debris pile will also need to be removed. Workman said a large amount of bamboo and an undergrowth of vines were removed in the clearing.” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo: Andrea Greer
According to developer Bill Workman, the clearing of parkland behind his Woodland Heights townhomes stems from a miscommunication: “I never intended for this to happen.” A subcontractor, he says, was hired last week only to grade the land as dictated by a city plat for drainage purposes. In fact, Workman — a first-time developer — was out of town when the so-called “egregious clear-cutting” went down. Returning to the site on Wrightwood St. on Sunday, he saw the missing vegetation, he says, and was “devastated.”
That might be because one of these townhomes Workman is building for himself, and he bought the property in 2011 because of its views of and proximity to the park. Coincidentally, he says that he’s a member of Friends of Woodland Park — the organization tasked with protecting the very land that was — well, overzealously groomed. And he claims that he never said he was trying to improve the townhomes’ view — as blogger Andrea Greer reports that she was told by a neighbor.
Since the weekend, Workman and his general contractors have been meeting with the parks department and flood control management to begin resolving the situation; he says he intends to follow their recommendations.
- The Woodland Park Massacre [Nonsequiteuse]
- Previously on Swamplot: Woodland Heights Neighbors Accuse Townhomes Developer of Clear-Cutting Parkland
Photo: Andrea Greer
Note: Read more on this story here.
Some neighbors seem pretty darn upset with the developer of these Woodland Heights townhomes for “egregious clear-cutting” of about an acre of vegetation from nearby Woodland Park, reports the blog Nonsequiteuse. The report, posted yesterday, claims that the developer acted in order to improve the townhomes’ view of Little White Oak Bayou. Bill Workman, the owner of the property and developer of these City Homes of Woodland Park, wasn’t immediately available to give a different side of the story that the photos taken at the site suggest.
