Portions of public parkland will soon be used for road widening and improvement projects in Buda after city leaders unanimously approved a resolution calling for it April 17.
The three road improvement projects – including Goforth Road, San Antonio Street/Garison Road, and Main Street – will be using small portions of public land currently designated as park areas to complete the projects. The original road projects are part of Proposition 3 of the 2014 Bond Package.
Each of the projects includes “roadway widening and other roadway improvements adjacent to land currently used as park area,” according to city documents.
Buda city staff hosted a public hearing to present the proposed resolution to city council as required by Texas Parks and Wildlife Code Chapter 26.
That chapter states that a municipality may not use public land unless there is no feasible and prudent alternative, and the project includes planning to minimize harm to the public land.
Accordingly, the city determined that there is no feasible alternative to using the public land for the identified road improvements and it had no other good option but to use the land to widen the roads. The city has also taken care to minimize harm to the park.
The three road improvement projects – including Goforth Road, San Antonio Street/Garison Road, and Main Street – will be using small portions of public land currently designated as park areas to complete the projects.
Safety and traffic improvements as a result of the roadway widening were cited as reasons for accepting the resolution.
“Our consultants, our engineers, our design experts, our land planners, have worked on this and came up with the best alternatives to be presented to council, and they approved this project, so that we can widen the roads to make them safer and also make the parks more accessible to the public,” City Attorney George Hyde said.
Hyde added in the case of the Garison project, traffic improvements are planned to complement and “actually encourage” more use of the park.
“So these kinds of planning considerations were exactly the purpose of the policy. It was designed to show that we are going to do these things right and smart to make sure park area is cared for,” Hyde said.
Two of the project areas, Main Street and Old Goforth Road, already have property transferred to the city for drainage easement, so the land in question already has co-use for parkland and utility/drainage use.
The city hosted the public hearing to be transparent with the public and because there have been instances in other cities in Texas in which cities were sued for not following the correct procedures for Chapter 26. Cedar Park was sued, but the lawsuit was dropped because they followed through with the process of public notices and hearings.
“Those were lessons learned, so to speak, so that when cities like Buda go through this process we could make sure to be transparent with the public and have all the approvals required,” Hyde said.
