Earth Starts Moving

Groundbreaking ceremony at Phil Hardberger Park — City officials and residents who have long worked to create a public urban park out of the former Voelcker dairy farm in North Central San Antonio will soon see the fruits of their labor at last.

The city held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday at Phil Hardberger Park, marking, the first major physical step towards developing the 311-acre plot of land at Blanco Road and Wurzbach Parkway into a sprawling greenspace.

Mayor Phil Hardberger offered thanks, not only to his colleagues at City Hall, but also other dignitaries, business community members and residents for their various contributions made so far to this endeavor.

San Antonio voters in 2007 passed a bond issue that included money to buy the former dairy farmland. A series of meetings to gather public input on the park's master development plan preceded Friday's ground-breaking, and more such meetings will take place as things progress, officials said.

The site is covered with historic oak trees, streams, native plants, wildflowers, pastures and the original Voelcker homestead. Phase IA improvements will include parking facilities, trails, a play field, a pilot segment of the oak savanna restoration, an overlook above Salado Creek and a classroom pavilion.

The first trail is scheduled for completion by early May. A ribbon-cutting will be set to mark that occasion.

In order to bolster advance efforts to protect the site into the future, several volunteers have banded together to form the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy. It's a community based partnership with the city that will advocate renewal, recreation and learning through nature and in accordance with the master plan. Details can be gained by calling 736-6037 or visiting www.voelckerpark.org.

Parks projects chosen for planning awards

Two San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department development projects will receive awards today for outstanding planning. The Creekway Parks Development Program and Phil Hardberger Park will receive two of the seven awards given annually by the San Antonio Section of the Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association.

The awards are based on innovation, comprehensiveness and other factors.

Several greenway trails were opened in 2008 and others will be finished this year through the Creekway Parks Development Program, which covers more than 900 acres of property along San Antonio creeks.

The first phase of the Phil Hardberger Park project is expected to break ground in February and will allow public access to plantings, picnic facilities and a play field later this year. Construction on an outdoor classroom, a trail along Salado Creek and other park amenities have already started.

City previews second phase of Phil Hardberger Park

With the first phase of development of Phil Hardberger Park nearing completion, city officials and consultants have unveiled plans for the second round of improvements to the 311-acre park in North Central San Antonio.

At a Jan. 13 public meeting at Oak Meadow Elementary School, San Antonio District 9 City Councilman Louis Rowe told 70 attendees that the park's first trail will be completed by April, with five, additional projects - all part of Phase lA - slated for completion by September. He said the second phase, Phase lB, will begin in September adding that both phases have been fully funded.

Phase lA, costing $2.2 million, includes the initial clearing of a savanna and recreation field as well as the construction of a trail and parking lot on the east side of the park, located near the northwest corner of Blanco Road and Wurzbach Parkway.

Phase lB, valued at $2.7 million, will feature construction of a pavilion and bluff overlook, the creation of a park entry off Northwest Military Highway and development of a restored savanna, recreation field, two trails and scenic clearings.

Landscape architect Stephen Stimson, whose firm is overseeing the park's development, said the 140-foot-long pavilion will feature a classroom with seating for 40, office space, restrooms and a shaded porch.

He said the pavilion, slated for completion in October 2010, will include ecologically friendly features such as solar panels, cisterns that collect water for area wildlife, recycling bins and composting toilets.

"This will be a state-of-the-art, open-air pavilion with a classroom that will demonstrate sustainable systems," Stimson said. "It will feature sun and water harvesting and will be a place where one can learn about regional ecology."

During the meeting two residents questioned the wisdom of using composting toilets, as opposed to connecting toilets to the city sewer line. They voiced concerns about the cost of the composting system and the ability of foam to adequately clear human waste in each toilet, but Stimson was undeterred in his advocacy of composting toilets.

"This is something we feel very strongly about," Stimson said. "We feel it's our mission to save water and use it as an educational tool. We estimate that we'll be able to save 300,000 gallons of water each year by using the composting toilets."

Stimson said another key feature of Phase lB will be an eight-foot-wide overlook that cantilevers 16 feet over Salado Creek.

"The overlook will accentuate the experience of being over the creek," he said. "It was originally 24 feet long, but was scaled back to 16 feet to address nearby residents privacy concerns. If we made it any shorter, it would make it difficult to see upstream or downstream."

Despite changes to the overlook's design, a few residents said they are still concerned about a loss of privacy, commenting that since many trees have dropped their leaves, the canopy that once shielded their backyards from view has been eliminated. Stimson promised to review the matter.

Stimson said additional improvements in Phase lB include the planting of native grasses and flowering plants to form oak savanna, the development of a nine-acre recreational field and the construction of two bike/pedestrian trails, which will be part of a nine-mile trail system.

He said while some of the paths will be relatively straight other paths will be curved to give a sense of mystery and will lead to scenic clearings.

"We think it's important to have destinations," Stimson said. "The outdoor areas in the landscape will be framed areas with places to sit, walkways and sightlines. Sightlines are great orientating locations. They allow views of various areas and help you avoid getting lost in the park."

Phil Hardberger Park: Wild in the city

Mayor Phil Hardberger doesn't waste words, but he can become downright loquacious when describing the 300 acres of oak savannah known as Phil Hardberger Park. Mayor Hardberger describes the park as "an oasis."

"For those of you who haven't seen the virgin land, it is truly a humbling and awe-inspiring experience," he confessed in his 2007 State of the City address. "It may even move you to hug a tree, though you won't be able to get your arms around many of them."

Their girth and age even provoked this nostalgic reverie: "To walk among those trees - many older than the heroes of the Alamo - is to know our history," he enthused. "It is a breathtaking expanse of urban wilderness."

Although the tract is neither pristine nor wilderness because the North Side site was a working farm for generations, the mayor's more important insight is spot on: Phil Hardberger Park offers us an unparalleled chance, even if only momentarily, to step outside of our decades-long mad rush to pave over every square inch, which has flattened San Antonio's contours and homogenized its vistas, crowding each with malls, freeways and subdivisions. Against this jarring backdrop, Phil Hardberger Park will be "an oasis," Hardberger affirmed, "and it is now ours to keep.

How we will keep its quiet beauty is a vital concern, because the city parks inventory contains only 14.5 acres per 1,000 residents, two acres less than the national average.

The gap used to be wider. Forty years ago, we had less than half the national average, and while we have made up ground, that may not remain true. In the 2000 census, for instance, San Antonio experienced its first increase in density since 1950, a pattern that will continue if our regional population hits the 2.5 million predicted for 2040, pressuring our already stressed parks.

This head-shaking projection is why it matters how Phil Hardberger Park (and subsequent open space) is designed.

Believing that this bucolic parcel could become a signature landscape, with an impact akin to that 19th century gem, Brackenridge Park, the city launched an international competition to entice renowned landscape architects to bring their perspectives to bear on Phil Hardberger Park.

They did. I was a member of the jury evaluating their proposals and was blown away by the diversity in design and detail, from the clever treatments of terrain and topography to the artful use of native flora and local culture. They understood us in ways we often miss about ourselves and the places we inhabit.

None more so than Stephen Stimson Associates and D.I.R.T. Studio, into whose hands Phil Hardberger Park has been entrusted. Their creative ambition was framed in their vision statement: Phil Hardberger Park will be "a cultivated wild at the edge of San Antonio." Imagining a landscape integrating natural forces and human stewardship, they proposed to regenerate indigenous grasses, reinvigorate oak woodlands and restore riparian flows, while paying homage to Max and Minnie Voelcker and their dairy operations by rehabbing farm structures into an education center.

Yet by itself, Phil Hardberger Park will not reverse San Antonio's shabby legacy of too-few playgrounds or soccer fields, hike-and-bike trails, forests or meadows; we didn't have enough in 1950 for a city of 408,000 and don't today at three times that.

But its creation might mark a watershed moment in local history, sparking a more proactive pursuit of recreational opportunities in a community that only a century ago touted itself as the City of Parks.

That wasn't the most accurate nickname, because it implied a resolute devotion to parklands development that the citizenry knew wasn't true; they had inherited most of the available open space.

Innovative 18th-century Spanish urban planners gave us a street grid centered on Main and Military plazas and demarcated San Pedro Park. In 1899, George Brackenridge built on this tradition when he donated the first 199 acres of what is now the 340-acre Brackenridge Park. A third wave of donations were spinoffs from real estate schemes, including Woodlawn Lake, Collins Park and a clutter of smaller, odd lots that developers have sold to or dumped on the city.

Park development boomed in the 1920s, leading to the purchase of nearly 1,100 acres, a figure not matched for another four decades. Not until the 1960s did San Antonio invest significantly in parks to enhance quality of life, yet even the acres it then purchased to create McAllister Park seemed trivial compared to San Antonio's explosive growth and outward sprawl.

We've been playing catch-up ever since. Despite Proposition 3 and the aquifer-protection zones it has established and City South's designated parklands, we have not yet dedicated ourselves to a well-funded campaign to build and endow a dense network of parks equitably distributed across the city.

Doing so would allow us to preserve farm, forest or ranch lands, and the water courses that flow through them; punch holes in the concrete so that the land and we might breathe; and let us revel in the peace, beauty and pleasure these new parks would provide.

Should Phil Hardberger Park generate such a sustained commitment to a greener and more playful future we just might distinguish ourselves, in Hardberger's words, as "one of the great livable cities of North America."

Looking skyward

White Mountain Apache group, looks to the sky during the Phil Hardberger Park open house.

Samuel Campos, 10, of the White Mountain Apache group, looks to the sky during the Phil Hardberger Park open house on Saturday. Plans for the first phase of this new 311-acre park recently received approval from the Historic Design and Review Commission.

First phase gets design panel OK

Grassland restoration is included; work on the North Side site could start in January.

A city review board has approved plans for the first phase of Phil Hardberger Park, an ambitious urban park project with hiking trails, restored grassland and such earthy features as composting toilets and a natural land bridge. Wednesday's blessing from the Historic and Design Review Commission allows work on the former 311-acre dairy farm to begin as early as January, with construction starting on a picnic area, playing fields and nature trails.

"It's a great thing for the future of San Antonio," said Timothy Cone, the commission's vice chairman. The most unusual of six major components approved unanimously Wednesday is a 2 1/2-acre oak savanna that seeks to restore native grassland habitat that once flourished in Texas. Ecologists estimate that only 1 percent of what was once 20 million acres of state grassland remains. Park planners, in response to concerns about tree preservation, have vowed to selectively remove trees in hopes of adding ecological diversity for birds, mammals and others that thrive on grassy prairies. Trees also will be an issue in development of the Water Loop Trail, which will run about 1 mile on the east end of the park. In places where the trail intersects clumps of heritage trees, the city will preserve the trees and build rectangular terraces where visitors can rest.

"And that happens in a number of places," said Stephen Stimson, a landscape architect on the project.

Wednesday's approval sets the stage for the park to begin taking definition amid great expectations some have for the North Side project, to be funded as part of a $550 million bond issue voters approved last year.

While residents have asked for things such as access for mountain bikes and an area for skateboarding, the park's master plan envisions more natural features, including a 175-foot-wide land bridge for deer and other wildlife to cross over Wurzbach Parkway. Aside from a paved access for buses, it seeks to use as little impervious cover as possible, to avoid altering drainage patterns, Stimson told the commission.

The city will return to the commission next year to ask for approval of the next phase, which will include parking areas and a pavilion. In response to concerns from the commission, Stimson and city parks officials said they're working with the San Antonio Fire Department to develop plans for fire prevention and management.

In other action, the commission approved plans for renovation of a mansion known as Terrell Castle in the Government Hill Historic District, near Fort Sam Houston. The four-story, 26-room structure designed by noted architect Alfred Giles was built in 1894 for Edwin Terrell, a Belgian diplomat. It since has been used as apartments and a bed-and-breakfast.

A new owner plans to restore the mansion to use for parties and receptions arid wants to restore its early appearance and original name: Lambermont.

The commission also voiced support of plans for a 15-story hotel in the 400 block of East Houston Street, by the Maverick Apartments. But members said they want to study the exterior design before work begins.

The old United Cigar Building will be demolished to allow for construction of the hotel, which will be part of the "Aloft by W Hotels" brand created Starwood Hotels in 2005.

PHIL HARDBERGER PARK PROJECTS

The Historic and Design Review Commission approved plans Wednesday for the first phase of development of the 311-acre park. Construction is expected to start early next year.

1. The oak savanna restoration on 2 1/2 acres seeks to revive the type of native Texas grasslands that once covered an estimated 20 million acres.

2. An entry driveway from Northwest Military Highway will provide access to the west end of the park.

3. A 9-acre South Field area will include two ball fields, with buffalo grass in surrounding areas and most heritage trees preserved.

4. The 1-mile Water Loop Trail on the park's east end will be made of permeable material and will be about 8 feet wide. Where it intersects clusters of heritage trees, terraces will be built for visitors to rest in the shade.

5. Two straight trails will extend east toward Voelcker Lane and Blanco Road.

6. A 'picnic grove' near the Blanco Road entry will have barbecue pits and picnic tables in a shaded area, with parking on the perimeter.

Plan to restore grasses has some worried about trees

Experts say grassland ecosystem's revival at Phil Hardberger Park would benefit the environment.

For decades, residents on the North Side have known the property that is now Phil Hardberger Park as an oasis of thick woods where deer hid and the branches muffled the roar of traffic.

Now with a $1 million grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department planners are preparing for crews with chainsaws and heavy equipment to clear 2.5 acres of the 300-acre park to make way for grassland this fall.

Residents who have watched developers cut thousands of trees to replace them with parking lots and subdivisions are not sold on the idea, nor do they completely trust the conceptual renderings the park planners show them.

"Urban residents are much more keen on trees than they are on grasses," said Rufus Stephens, an urban biologist for TPWD. "You can't stand under a grass."

Less than 1 percent of the original 20 million acres of tall grass prairie that covered Texas remains. It is the most endangered ecosystem in North America. Undisturbed, a single square meter can support more than 100 species of grasses and scores of flowering plants. It was the base of a food chain nourishing everything from horned toads to bison.

Biologists working on the development of Phil Hardberger Park believe that before the Alamo was built, the site was home to an oak savanna landscape. Then, 6-foot grasses shaded out the Texas persimmon and Ashe juniper, also known as mountain cedar. After cattle ate down the grass and the fires that swept the region were stopped, the woody vegetation spread.

"These are native species," said project manager Tom Lee of the trees. "Just very aggressive. This is not healthy."

The trees have resulted in a drop in the number of hawk and owl species, songbirds, foxes and rabbits and the disappearance of the huge community of rodents, snakes and lizards that thrived in burrows dug into soil. Grassland is also better at feeding rainwater into the aquifer and pulling carbon gases from the air.

Because of these traits, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest service and private endowments and agencies like the Nature Conservancy support grants and projects for grassland restoration.

Phil Hardberger Park is no exception.

The TPWD grant application estimated the cost of the 2.5-acre "grassland room" at $175,600.

"Restoration is a deliberate act," Lee said "If we have agreed that restoring this habitat is worth it, then we have to take action."

The planners assure they will go beyond San Antonio's strictest tree protection ordinances and will be undertaking a "very selective and deliberate process" in choosing which trees to cut.

Richard Alles, co-founder of the Citizens Tree Coalition, "We don't know what is contained in that area," he said.

Resident Claudette Mullen is concerned that the master plan calls for eventually creating dozens more acres of grassland.

"Just don't kill the native trees," she said "I'm not against grass."

What frustrates Mullen the most is the lack of answers from parks officials about what they plan to remove.

"We've been watching a fuzzy focus movie for a long time," she said.

Parks board member Charles Bartlett, vice chairman of the city's Parks and Recreation Board and a botanist, horticulturist and landscape designer questions the value of grassland. As suburban neighborhoods are built, the intentional loss of smaller trees and shrubs doesn't make sense, he said.

"This is a controversy that's been brewing since the very first original master plan public meetings," he said "The area is right now heavily populated by a number of mixed hardwoods - oaks, mesquites, Texas persimmon and condalia bushes that are not only historic but beautiful in their own right."

The San Antonio Conservation Society heard a presentation last week for the first time on the grassland-versus-trees issue and decided not to take action or pick a side.

"It's interesting," said president Marcie Ince. "We're proponents for trees and parks and this pristine location in the middle of San Antonio, and we're very interested in the historic aspects of the park. But we just can't micromanage that much."

One of the first elements to be completed at Phil Hardberger Park will be a 2.5-acre 'grassland room' to show visitors what the landscape looked like before European settlement. Work is expected to begin late this fall after soil and tree surveys are completed.

How to make a grassland room:

• Texas persimmon and Ashe juniper have come to dominate the landscape of Phil Hardberger Park, replacing the native grassland after decades of heavy grazing and fire suppression.

• After a tree survey and soil testing, crews will come in with chainsaws and heavy equipment to remove pre-selected trees and trim others to allow sunlight to reach the ground.

• Depending on how the grasses come back on their own and the success of plantings, the 'grassland room' of Phil Hardberger Park will start to resemble the Blackland Prairie that once covered the area. If management is successful, the 2.5-acre lot could match the biodiversity of a true tallgrass prairie in less than 100 years.

Park project gets $1 million grant

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission awarded the city of San Antonio a $1 million matching grant Thursday to develop the new 311-acre Phil Hardberger Park in the north-central part of the city.

Planned park improvements amenities include outdoor-education classrooms and pavilion, trails, overlooks, grove planting, a multipurpose recreation field, picnic units, oak savannah and grasslands restoration, drinking fountains, trash bins and roads.

The competitive grant was among $10 million in grants awarded Thursday by the commission, including a $50,000 one to help develop the proposed three-acre Parrigin Playground in Helotes.

Panel acts to protect 12 historic sites

Conservation to be weighed by City Council this summer. A city panel has gone forward with plans to protect a dozen historic structures dating as far back as the late 1700s, including a house built by an early Texas settler a few years after the battle of the Alamo.

A city panel has gone forward with plans to protect a dozen historic structures dating as far back as the late 1700s, including a house built by an early Texas settler a few years after the battle of the Alamo.

Wednesday's action by the Historic and Design Review Commission marked a milestone in a five-year effort to protect historic houses, barns and other structures, and at least one cemetery, in parts of San Antonio that once were used as farmland. By coincidence, it came as the commission said goodbye to the city's longtime historic preservation officer.

The San Antonio Conservation Society which provided $42,000 and received a $10,000 national grant to help prepare an inventory of historic farm and ranch properties throughout Bexar County applauded the move, which is set for City Council consideration in August.

"At a time when historic farm and ranch complexes are threatened by urban sprawl as the county undergoes urbanization and highway construction, these properties need to be designated as local city of San Antonio landmarks," said Paula Piper, a former Conservation Society president, as she read a statement from the group.

Kay Hindes, senior planner with the city said the "finding of historic significance" by the city, if approved, will put those properties under landmark status, protecting them from demolition, and will help the owners qualify for preservation grants and tax exemptions.

Patrice Villastrigo owns a site on the North Side that includes a stone building, known as the William H. Jackson House, that predates the Civil War. She said she didn't know all of the history the city has learned about the property, which was used as a stagecoach stop, but appreciates knowing it will be protected at a time when much of the city has been paved with concrete.

"I think this is a fabulous project," Villastrigo told the commission.

Another site among the 12 up for historic designation is a house on the South Side, built by Texas pioneer Asa Mitchell around 1840. Mitchell, one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300" settlers, fought in the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, where the state won independence from Mexico after the Alamo fell.

Action on five other sites was delayed for the commission's next meeting on June 18. Hindes said some owners wanted more time to study the designation. A few might want the city to reduce the area of land surrounding a structure to be deemed historic, she said.

In other business Wednesday, the commission postponed action on a proposal to demolish the Hedrick Building, a 10-story structure downtown at Martin and St. Mary’s streets that opened in 1928. The city staff has recommended the commission deny a demolition request and approve a historic designation for the building, which is owned by RBRA Inc.

The meeting closed with an emotional farewell from commissioners and staff to Ann McGlone, the historic preservation officer since 1993. McGlone, whose last day with the city is Friday, will be the community development director in Alamo Heights, where she'll coordinate development of a comprehensive plan for the suburban community. Hindes will assume the role of preservation officer as the city conducts a search for a permanent replacement.

McGlone recalled fighting demolition of the old, abandoned $3 Motel on Fredericksburg Road in the mid-to-late 1990s. Though many residents wanted it razed, Councilman Roger Flores saw its historic value as a former motor court of the 1920s, when the automobile age was in its infancy.

The motel later was leveled, and replaced by an auto parts store and other commercial businesses. But McGlone remembered how Flores, who died in 2004 courageously argued to preserve it, saying communities often regret destroying a building, but never regret saving one.

"I wish more council people had the strength to say that, because I really think that's true," McGlone said.

This Man, This Land

Phil Hardberger Park's caretaker, Dale Chumbley, hopes to stay long after it opens to public.

For $100 a month in rent, Dale Chumbley lives on 100 acres in the middle of the suburban sprawl on San Antonio's North Side. As dusk approaches, he likes to sit on his back porch to watch his cattle and see the deer silently pass along the fence line to sip from the water trough.

"They could offer me a house in the Dominion paid for and I would choose to stay here," he said.

Chumbley, 56, is the caretaker of Phil Hardberger Park. His goal is to stay on the property as long as he can, and he has a lease till 2010. But how many years he has left on the property will depend on the politics of the City Council and the future funding for the development of the park.

"My wish is they find me back there dead some day," he said pointing toward the woods of oak and mesquite where he and his grandson like to follow the deer trails.

Purchased by the city for $50 million, Phil Hardberger Park is slated to open to the public in January with some trails and a new parking lot Chumbley knows the opening will mean he can no longer step outside in his underwear, but the city will still need him to take care of the original Voelcker homestead.

The master plan for the park calls for a massive bridge to be built over Wurzbach Parkway to connect the 100 acres that Chumbley looks after with the 200 acres the city purchased on the other side. The vision includes restored meadows and an interpretive center where schoolchildren can see cows on a 19th-century dairy farm.

That farm is currently Chumbley's home. And there is no money earmarked for the project, as the majority of park developments do not have funding. Whenever the consultants the city hired to come up with the plan visit the farm, Chumbley always asks them to just cut to the chase and tell him if he can stay.

"I'm very lucky," he said. "I've worked on a lot of fences here."

Chumbley can trace his roots back six generations in San Antonio and has spent his adult life managing cattle. He started working at the Union Stock Yards in San Antonio at 19 and stayed there until it closed in 2001.

Cattle that owner Minnie Voelcker kept on the property needed to be moved and did not want to climb into the back of a trailer. Chumbley simply cut the stock off water for a night and then led them into the pen the next morning. It is a standard trick, but the bankers were impressed.

Even though Voelcker had millions from selling a portion of the property, she chose to stay on the land and keep it close to what it was like when she moved to it as a 19-year-old bride.

Chumbley sees his goal as carrying out her legacy.

"You don't see people like that anymore," said Banks Smith, the lawyer for Minnie Voelcker and later her estate. "I would trust Dale with my life."

He has been the man the bank turned to when something on the property needed to be done.

"That's all I know," he said. "When that is all you know how to do, you're kind of stuck."

He has replaced or repaired the fences. He has chased out vandals and kept peace with the neighbors.

But Chumbley is not alone in his love of the property. After he gave Mayor Phil Hardberger a tour of the land, the mayor handed him a card and told him if he ever needs anything to give his office a call. On that tour, Chumbley bonded with the mayor.

But even with the direct line to the mayor's office. Chumbley still prefers to solve problems on the property himself. He said it would break his heart if he had to leave. He wants to see the property kept as it is so his grandson can show his grandchildren the trees the two of them planted together and then go explore the woods.

Though he's usually a calm man, his face turns red and he starts to swear when he thinks of people carving their initials into one of the trees or letting their dogs off their leashes and chasing his cattle. Then he looks over the field and hears the grackles cawing.