Naked City

An item that would devote parkland to the Prairie Grass golf resort and conference center, which would be located on what is currently vacant parkland at Lake Walter E. Long, was added to the November ballot by the City Council two weeks ago.

Last Resort?

You may have blinked, but two weeks back, the City Council painlessly added an item to the November ballot -- an election to approve the "alienation" of parkland at Lake Walter E. Long, as is required by the city charter, to allow construction of the proposed Prairie Grass golf resort and conference center. Excuse me? A motion to lengthen the ballot, and to possibly devote parkland to commercial use, fiercely opposed by Council Member Beverly Griffith, passed on consent? "Yes, that was a surprise to us, too," says lawyer Jay Hailey of Locke Liddell, representing Prairie Grass developer Pierre Gagne and his investors.

Prairie Grass is the latest fruition of an idea that's been bumping around for a while -- turning a 400-acre parcel just north of the dam that forms Lake Long, acquired by the city in 1969, into a golf course. For years, though, the vision has been of a public golf course, operated by the city's Parks and Recreation Dept. The current proposal, which actually grew from abandoned plans for a UT golf complex, is for something quite different -- high-end resort, Marriott hotel, course designed by Jack Nicklaus, access to the lakefront (and thus the alienated parkland), nearby executive-style housing, and such like.

In the parks-are-sacred Austin political mindset, the idea of alienating parkland for private luxury would normally be about as appealing as a bucket of cold spit. But this land has been fenced in and inaccessible for decades, and the city's Smart Growth policies say it should be letting things like Prairie Grass, in locations like Lake Long, go forth blessed. While some council members may have qualms about the political appeal of the Prairie Grass deal, only Griffith seems to object to it viscerally on principle. According to her aide Jeff Jack, her "acquiescence (to the ballot item's passing on consent) should not be seen as any kind of endorsement."

Indeed, when Prairie Grass first came before council in the spring -- with an eye to possibly making a May ballot -- Griffith put the brakes on, asking for analyses of the deal's fiscal prudence (Gagne proposes a $1 million per year lease of the property) as well as conclusions about maintaining public access to Lake Long itself and keeping the golf courses within financial striking distance of mere mortals. Did she get what she wanted?

"No," says Jack. "Beverly has always been against setting the precedent of alienating dedicated parkland; she feels that to assume every piece of parkland that doesn't have a soccer field is 'unutilized' is erroneous. And there were basic issues of access, and there are no guarantees in the current proposal to address those issues." Other problems include the binding of the city to Gagne's project, rather than the city seeking developers for a project of its design, and the environmental consequences of building Prairie Grass on actual prairie grass, one of the fast-disappearing remnants of original Blackland Prairie in Central Texas.

For his part, Hailey agrees that what Griffith wants she does not yet have. He says Griffith's concerns "were all discussed by the council, but the legal review held that they couldn't be put in the actual ballot language. They'd have to happen with the ground lease, and Gagne has no objection whatsoever to negotiating these terms in the ground lease."

Actually, those issues will have to be addressed well before the city gets to paperwork, because there's an election to be won. "We'll have to discuss those issues leading up to the referendum," Hailey says, "and I expect there will be additional discussion between my client, PARD, and the Parks Board -- they've laid out items of concern, and we're working with them as well. We need to get the right information out so that people can make an informed choice. We're just now thinking through the process by which we'd do that. We expect a lot of it will be one-on-one -- us dealing with neighborhood and civic groups who have concerns about using this parkland this way."

Likewise from the Place 4 council office. When asked how, if at all, he and Griffith could shape the outcome of the Prairie Grass referendum, Jack replied, "I think a council member has an obligation to the community to educate, by bringing up issues in discussion before the council and by talking responsibly about the pros and cons. That's the important role we have to fill."