The City of Richardson has published a draft of its long-overdue Comprehensive Plan update, the first since 2009. My eyes went immediately to how Point North Park is represented in our new plan. Point North Park is in far northwest Richardson, wedged between Canyon Creek and UT-Dallas.
The picture above shows the park in both the plan and on Google Maps. It's the green triangle in the plan, on the left. Green, as in park. That's what the City wants you to think is there. In fact, that green space on the plan is mostly three large water storage tanks in the aerial photo, on the right. The City of Richardson has been misrepresenting this mostly industrial land as a park for years, even as its parkland shrinks with the addition of a new 5 million gallon tank, under construction. See "When is a Park Not a Park?" from May 26, 2022. Maybe it'll be another fifteen years before the City updates its Comprehensive Plan again and finally admits that Point North "Park" is mostly Point North "Industrial Park."
"Green on city map,
Water tanks cloaked as parkland,
Deception lives on."
—h/t ChatGPT
P.S. I expect I'll have more to say about the rest of the draft Plan after I've had time to digest it (cough, Housing Action Items).
3 comments:
I'm beginning to think the park name, "Point North," is unintentionally descriptive. In geometry, a "point" is a zero-dimensional object with no size, meaning it has no length, width, or depth; it only represents a position and is usually marked by a dot on a diagram. Over time, Richardson's Point North Park is slowly being eroded into a geometrical point.
Essentially, City parks to my understanding are NOT supposed to be repurposed into ANYTHING beyond their recreational purpose by STATE LAW. The city manage AND The City Council allowed this park to be destroyed apparently by collusion between UTD and the city. It WAS a beautiful, well maintained multi-use walking and filed for cricket as well. It's been destroyed. Where is the park restoration of land going to be in order to acknowledge and address this? Once the area starts transforming more into zero lot line residences, then what?
Steve Crump, thanks for the comment. You are right. State law prohibits cities from repurposing parks into other uses. The City of Richardson has a response to that. Not a good response, but a response. It's covered here: "Maybe Your Neighborhood Park Isn't".
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