Urban prairie project kicks off
The detention ditch covered in yellow grass stretched behind the podium where the city’s chief resilience officer, Marissa Aho, stepped up in the brisk Friday morning air. She was there to kick off a series of speeches by local officials celebrating an $800,000 plan to redevelop the area into prairie.
The grassy patch where she stood was just south of Loop 610 in Houston, part of a property called Cornerstone Community. In several tidy buildings there, including a midrise complex that Aho faced, Star of Hope and New Hope Housing provide permanent and transitional places for some 1,200 people to live.
This new project exemplified a local push for a more equitable approach to rethinking environments in which people live. And it follows a series of projects that have challenged what Houstonians expect flood infrastructure to look like. Though design hasn’t begun, organizers envision some combination of green stormwater infrastructure, prairie and naturebased recreational space here.
Still, urban environmental equity is a steep hill to climb: The parking lot was nearly full, with dozens who drove in to watch the news
conference. As Aho spoke, she competed with the sound of cars and trucks whizzing up and down the road. But the project will help protect in some small way against heat and increased flooding that come hand in hand with the climate change spurred by greenhouse gases created by burning fossil fuels.
Mayor Sylvester Turner took the podium with optimism. Three City Council members were there in support, as was Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis. There was applause. Photos were taken. Turner called the effort “a true demonstration project” — one that could inspire others to come. Completion is targeted by when his term as mayor ends in 2023. To those working on it, he wished, “God speed.”