Hill Country Conservancy Takes up the Challenge

It’s inspiring to see the efforts of Hill Country Conservancy (HCC) to complete a new "Walk for a Day" trail from Barton pool in Zilker Park to Hays County.

Participants of the 2004 workshop discovered that existing parks and greenbelts in southwest Austin could be connected to one another through just four large vacant commercial properties.  At the time, these parcels were all going through zoning development approvals.  A chance was slipping away to link up public parklands with an off-road trail corridor.

This plan lay dormant until HCC took up the challenge.  Some opportunities to acquire land or easement have since been lost to development, but overall, this route remains quite feasible.

You can read the full Austin American Statesman article on the Hill Country Conservancy's website. 

Workshop a success!
On October 2, 2004, an historic event took place in southwest Austin.

Seventy-five people representing neighborhood associations, environmental groups, developers, businesses, professional planners and other community groups spent all day Saturday at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center developing visions for greenbelt and trail connections in southwest Austin. The area considered for a new greenbelt trail is roughly between the Barton Creek Greenbelt and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Informative and succinct morning presentations laid the intellectual groundwork to put the rest of the day's planning in context. Special thanks to Dr. Fritz Steiner, Dean of the UT School of Architecture served as our event host and helped both introduce the day’s learning and wrap up our lessons learned at the end of the day. Kudos to Robin Loving, our professional facilitator who helped us keep on track through the whole day.

Consensus Map
The Southwest Greenbelt Consensus Map represents the trail routes favored by a majority of the participant stakeholders present at the design workshops held at the Wildflower Center Oct. 4, 2004.