New Pocket Park Planned on Little Walnut Creek

Update July 29 City council approved the purchase.
Update July 22 More detail from PARD assistant director Liana Kallivoka

We recently learned that the city Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) plans to purchase 8803 and 8805 Georgian Dr to create a park near where the creek flows under Georgian at the bridge.
Travis County Appraisal District records show that, in total, the size is about an acre, including a long narrow section of creek bank on the east side of the bridge and adding in a smaller city-owned chunk on the west side that hosts the US Geological Survey stream gauge.

The buildings, in disrepair and reportedly containing lead and asbestos materials, will be removed. According to the Watershed Protection Department’s current floodplain map, most of the land is in the 25 year flood plain so building nearly any kind of new structure there is prohibited.

Georgian Dr is our primary north-south pedestrian and bicycle route, including use by children walking between school and home. This park by the bridge, centrally located between Anderson/Rundberg and between I35/N Lamar, can be a great enhancement of our green space for enjoyment of the creek and the active transportation routes.

However, public parks are a great venture only when they feel safe enough for the entire public to enjoy. A park that does not feel safe is underused by the funding public who would love to enjoy it but feel they can’t.

This location and some nearby neighborhood public parks and open land lack effective measures that encourage safe, legal use and discourage illegal, unsafe, unhealthy use. Open land in our area continues to be at risk of becoming an illegal “business” location, such as an open-air drug market or brothel, that then attracts further crime, that then spreads into the surrounding neighborhood and requires expensive ongoing public spending for law enforcement, emergency services, and trash cleanup. Creating new open space and park land benefits our community only when the context is acknowledged and addressed.

This new park requires, and this community deserves, the necessary investment in safety. From the beginning, the City of Austin should implement best practices in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) as a key, integrated, fully funded, officially required. All other proven best practices to maximize stakeholder investment and community benefit should be explored and applied to this new greenway and pocket park.

USGS stream gauge on facebook
USGS stream gauge on iNaturalist

Objective Q.2: Ensure public safety throughout the planning areas.
Recommendation 8: Adopt and apply those principles set forth by the Crime Prevention through Environmental Design tool.
Recommendation 9: Encourage the use of a CPTED Neighborhood Safety Audit.
Recommendation D210 Provide well-designed light solutions for pedestrians, streets, and school and transit bus stops, consistent with CPTED.
Objective Q.D44: Develop outcome goals and measures for observed issues at bus stops, sidewalks, parks, libraries which reduce the sense of safety.

Objective P.9: The new park’s landscaping should provide function and safety to all visitors.
Recommendation 52 Investigate safety measures that will protect all park visitors.
Recommendation 58 Plant low-growing, native shrubbery and/or greenery that promote natural surveillance among visitors of the new park.
Objective Q.D67 Increase native wildlife and pollinator habitat in the planning area, compatible with public safety.
Objective Q.D51: Reduce the prevalence and impact of prostitution

Objective Q.D39 No North Lamar/Georgian Acres deaths from drowning