Zilker advocates form nonprofit to take lead as vision plan moves forward

Leaders from nonprofit groups attached to Zilker Park have formed a new nonprofit group intended to enhance and preserve the 351-acre metropolitan park that is expected to be transformed in the coming years.

The Zilker 351 group announced its formation this week after initial meetings and filing incorporation paperwork last year. Many of its principal members, which come from 16 other organizations such as the Trail of Lights Foundation and Friends of Barton Springs Pool, started discussing the need for a Zilker-specific caretaker group in early 2021 during the early stages of work to create the Zilker Park Vision Plan that was unveiled in late 2022.

There have been no discussions with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department about what role Zilker 351 could play in the park’s ongoing care or fundraising, but interim Executive Director Karen Blizzard said the department’s Community Parknerships program offers the possibility to eventually help to coordinate community-led cleanups, facilitate activities, and propose and advocate for park enhancements.

The group has no plans to evolve into a more robust conservancy, which typically takes a far more resource-intensive role in the upkeep and care of a park.

Blizzard said the individual nonprofits involved in Zilker Park saw a need to have one organization directly involved in the overall planning and direction of the park, including recruiting and cultivating public-private partnerships to fund the many capital projects called for in the vision plan.

“The groups began talking about park needs in the in-between spaces of the park, like not within the botanical garden scope of work or Austin Sunshine Camp, but those areas that affect everybody and how could those spaces be improved to provide a richer visitor experience,” she said. “The conversations continued, and we were also aware of the City Council’s directive for PARD to work with nonprofits to form public-private partnerships to help take care of our parks. We were aware of that need and we thought perhaps this group could become such a partner over time.”

Zilker 351 has not released its budget, but attorney and Board Member Mike Cannatti said a small group of private parks supporters have contributed on top of grants from Barton Springs Conservancy and the Austin Together nonprofit group. Cannatti also said City Council’s anticipated passage of the vision plan later this summer is the next major policy piece that will allow Zilker 351 to to move forward with its strategy including hiring a permanent executive director and other needed staff.

Board member and tech executive Rachel Green said some of the group’s primary concerns include environmental uplift, and maintaining and improving accessibility to Zilker as the city grows.

“We want to make sure that it is accessible for transportation as far as driving personal vehicles or if they’re going to take one of our buses to the park, as well as some of our shuttles,” she said. “Regardless of the form of transportation or the usage of the park, we also want to consider some of our parking arrangements and transportation options, like creating green parking garages to reduce some of the surface traffic and allow more pedestrian walkways and bike access.”

The possibility of up to three underground parking garages being built around the park’s boundaries caused criticism of the vision plan when it was released last year. There was also criticism of the plan from some neighborhood groups and the Save Our Springs Alliance, which called the parking plans excessive and said there aren’t enough protections for Barton Springs.

Cannatti said there is likely to be common ground between those groups and Zilker 351.

“We think that the neighborhood and the SOS group did have some really good ideas that they brought forward to the plan, including the Rewild Zilker plan, which proposed to green up the park with more trees and more greenery … we actually don’t disagree with that,” he said.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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