FOX 7 Focus: New group hopes to kill Zilker Park Vision Plan
AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin City Council is expected to vote next month on a plan to make major upgrades to Zilker Park.
However, there are some who think potential additions like parking garages and a land bridge could do more harm than good.
In this FOX 7 Focus, FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak sits down with David Weinberg, the leader of the newly-formed Save Zilker Park PAC which aims to kill the Zilker Park Vision Plan.
FOX 7 Focus: Should city revamp Zilker Park?
In this week's FOX 7 Focus, FOX 7's John Krinjak goes one-on-one with Mike Cannatti with the Barton Springs Conservancy, a group that supports the controversial Zilker Park Vision Plan. They argue the plan is necessary in order for the park to thrive in the future.
READ MORE: FOX 7 Focus: Group supports controversial Zilker Park Vision Plan
John Krinjak: All right, we are in Zilker Park with David Weinberg from the Save Zilker Park PAC. Tell me about this organization. When did it form, and what's the goal?
David Weinberg: Sure, so the PAC was formed recently by myself working together with a lot of other folks in the community who are very worried about this Zilker Park Vision Plan, because we feel like there are parts of this plan which are just very, very unpopular with the public.
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John Krinjak: And I understand this PAC kind of formed out of a parks board meeting that happened a few weeks ago. What happened in that meeting that made you say we need to do something bigger?
David Weinberg: Well, you know, we had hundreds of people show up to the parks board meeting to urge the commission not to advance the plan. And they went ahead and they did. So, you know, people have been making a lot of noise about their displeasure with this plan. But we feel like we really needed to take, you know, take it a step further because the commission did ultimately vote to advance it on a 7 to 3 vote.
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John Krinjak: There are a lot of components, the parking garages, the land bridge potentially over Barton Springs Road, potentially some pedestrian bridges, I think, over Lady Bird Lake. Why are these elements the wrong direction to go?
David Weinberg: Well, I think it's a mixed bag with the plan. The parking garages, though, they're, we feel, they're really the wrong direction for the city of Austin, a city that that wants to move in a direction of less cars. It wants to move in a direction of doing things for the climate. Why would we be building three pretty sizable parking garages? In terms of the amphitheater on the great lawn, you know, Austinites are already used to losing this gorgeous space for a lot of the fall when ACL is here and Trail of Lights is here. And I think people like those events. But when you start to get into actually building something permanent on this space, that's where I think it's really a poor decision for the City to be heading.
READ MORE: Zilker Park Vision Plan draws concerns from community members
John Krinjak: At that meeting, the parks board meeting, we heard some arguments in favor of this plan, you know, essentially saying traffic is increasing here, there's more people, something needs to be done to upgrade the park.
John Krinjak: What do you say to those arguments?
David Weinberg: sure. I think there are a lot of things to say. First of all, I don't think everyone shares the opinion that Zilker Park is being loved to death. Another thing we found in our poll is that 76% of Austinites like the park the way it is. I think we can all agree that we can probably do a better and smarter job moving people in and out of the park on busy summer weekends or some other days of the year when it's really crowded; however we don't need to do that with parking garages.
READ MORE: City leaders want to give Zilker Park major renovations
John Krinjak: Is there a middle ground here? Do you think there's some sort of compromise, where you upgrade the park, where you preserve what needs to be preserved without building out some of this other stuff?
David Weinberg: I don't feel like right now the city is doing a good faith job of listening to the public and maybe compromising on anything like a parking garage or an amphitheater or a bridge. It seems like they're going all or nothing, and it's unfortunate that they're taking that approach. But if they're going to take that approach, then, you know, citizens need to make their voices heard to say, no, we really don't want this.