East Austin parkland cursed by history of false starts
Drive past the area around Walter E. Long Metropolitan Park in far East Austin and you’ll see miles of chainlink fence and “No Trespassing” signs. The lake offers fishing and other activities but the park is underused, observers say. Nearby amenities are few.
Fifty years ago, the city had big plans for the land. The idea was nebulously called “The Decker Lake Project,” then encompassing as much as roughly 3,800 acres — including 2,400 acres of undeveloped land and what was initially to be 269 acres of lake. The city took land from largely black and Hispanic landown- ers, some of them farmers, and others, like future Austin City Council Member Charles Urdy, were people aiming to build there.
Part of the project was supposed to be a golf course. That hasn’t happened. But Warren Hayes wants to make it real.
Some think the neighbor-
hood would be better served by a grocery store, a doctor’s office or someplace to eat breakfast. But Hayes thinks it’s time to forge a public-private partnership — his part of it is Decker Lake Golf LLC — to help the city make good on a long-delayed pledge.
Hayes didn’t consciously intend to settle in East Austin. When the West Texas native moved here in 1987 it was a matter of affordability. His home has been at FM 973 and the Texas 130 toll road, on the same grounds as his business, Hayes Modular, since the mid-1990s. His wife is a successful real estate agent in the area. He raised two daughters there.
And he has come to the weary conclusion that the city as a whole views his area — just 20 minutes from downtown — as if it’s in another galaxy. And it’s true there isn’t a whole lot out there. The closest H-E-B to Hayes is almost 6 miles away.
Hayes and his business partner, former golf pro Joe Ogilvie, revived the idea of a golf course at the arguably neglected parkland, much of which the city acquired through eminent domain five decades ago.
Decker Creek was dammed in 1967 to create a reservoir then called Decker Lake, which was renamed Walter E. Long Lake in 1978.
The council in April 1967 moved to approve funds to compensate displaced landowners, according to council minutes, noting that reasonably priced replacement housing could be found. The following year, the city created a plan for Walter E. Long Metropolitan Park with 735 acres on the east side of the park to be developed as a golf course.
The site has been controversial since the beginning. In September 1968, an investigation by an Austin TV station claimed then-U.S. Rep. J.J. “Jake” Pickle and two partners between 1959 and 1961 — a few years before the Austin Democrat was first elected to Congress — bought between 500 and 600 acres in the area from the three Connally brothers, including future Gov. John Connally.
There was no indication that Pickle was involved in securing the more than $700,000 in federal money for land that was condemned — the term used in media reports — for Decker Lake, and speculators had begun buying land in the area as early as 1958, according to news clippings in Pickle’s archives at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas.
Pickle, who was known to be transparent about his finances, fired back at the TV report two days later, calling the story a politically motivated attack and said there was “no conceivable breach of ethics, no violation of the law nor any moral issue involved except of a cheap political effort by my opponent’s manager to misrepresent transactions which have been conducted in full public view from the beginning.”
According to an Austin Statesman article, Pickle and his partners were among about 25 property owners who sued after the city took their property under eminent domain. After appeals, the city, Pickle and the others settled, agreeing on about $214,000 for slightly more than 551 acres.
Urdy agreed that people weren’t fairly compensated, including for his and his wife’s 3-acre tract, which is now under the lake. “No,” he said. “They gave us what we invested, not 1 cent of interest.”
Years passed and no golf course existed. Nearly a decade after the council vote, the notion of creating a game ranch on the property was floated. That also came to nothing.
In 1978, the plan was updated.
In 2000, a proposal to build a commercial golf course there was voted down. As recently as 2010, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department approved implementing Phase 2 of the project, but the department is strapped.
The council’s Economic Opportunity Committee, at the suggestion of its chairwoman, Council Member Ellen Troxclair, hitched the latest proposed development to the creation of an “economic development strike fund” for the area. At a May 21 meeting of the full council, the members indefinitely postponed a vote and moved to create a working group of five council members to look at the larger issues about the best ways to prod growth in the area.
Council Member Ora Houston has heard it all before. She notes that three generations of councils have considered — and failed to substantively address — the problem.
“It’s always, ‘We can’t,’” Houston said. “It’s never, ‘What’s possible?’ We’ve been waiting since the ’60s. The city doesn’t have to put any money into this project. This is an opportunity for a developer to use parkland for park purposes. ... They’ve figured out how to get over every hurdle and make it work.”
Houston opposes putting the current deal to a public vote because, she says, “people who care more about the environment than they care about an economic trigger in District 1” would mobilize and defeat the measure. But she sees the matter as a win for the entire city and East Austin in particular.
“The part we’re talking about is not the park that’s developed,” Houston said. “It’s a property with a fence around it, and nobody’s been on it. The only access is off the lake. If in 20 years they’re not making any money, the city has some developed land that was nothing but nothing before.”
To hear Hayes tell it, he’s aiming to make good on a promise made decades ago.
“They took real estate from poor people and underrepresented people and promised all this stuff,” said Hayes, 48. “I get fired up when I think about it. I raised my family here. I took my wife on our first date on that lake. We could have left this community, but we love it. We just want some fairness and economic opportunity. We need help over here.”
For more than a year, Hayes’ partnership has been trying to get the city’s permission to build a multimillion-dollar PGA tournament-worthy, environmentally sensitive, luxury golf development including two courses and a hotel on the property.
Neighbors and Austin City Manager Marc Ott have been enthusiastic, but there are plenty of folks who have been very passionately opposed or critical of this project, including members of the Parks and Recreation Board, which split 3-3-1 on recommending the project.
Under a proposed revenue-sharing agreement, the city could net almost $15 million from the development in its first decade, with the percentage rising from 3 percent early on to as much as 12 percent after a quarter-century. An estimated 35 jobs would be created at the site — not all 735 acres are likely to be used — and it’s unclear how vigorous any secondary growth would be around the development. The proposed licensing agreement could run 50 to 90 years.
One of those opposed to the idea is Roy Waley, who sits on the executive committee of the Austin regional Sierra Club. He says he’s pleased at the council’s posture.
“If golf goes in and fails, the neighbors are right back to where they started,” Waley said. “Let’s put it all together and make a difference.”
Still, longtime residents of the area say it’s far past time for the city to do something — anything — for the area.
“Everybody else has a plan to do something else at some point down the road,” Urdy, who served five terms on the City Council, told the committee. “All the plans and promises will mean the same thing they’ve meant to the people of East Austin. And I think you want to do better than that, but you can’t do better than that by planning or promising something down the road.”
Should the council eventually approve the idea, Hayes said, there’s no timetable for groundbreaking or completion. Any green light by the council would trigger a round of feasibility and environmental studies, and developers don’t know what the results of those would be.
Jeffrey Schryver also says it’s past time for movement. In 1968, when he was 8 years old, the city took 237 acres of his family’s land that his great-grandfather first settled on. Some of his family’s land that was taken is underwater now, and he says many of the former landowners are dead.
“It must have been a hugely ambitious project. But I think the city just forgot about it,” Schryver said. “I don’t think the city enters into eminent do- main lightly, or at least it shouldn’t. Here’s an opportunity to make good on those plans. And the taxpayers have already paid for it once.”