Here's a look at where the smaller version of the Urban Lake would be built, on the downtown Dallas side of the Trinity River. (Lara Solt/The Dallas Morning News)
The Trinity Lakes – hailed by some and derided by others as “puddles” – are a step closer to being dug.
The Dallas City Council approved on Wednesday a $737,000 design contract for two smaller versions of the lakes, variants of which were approved by voters in 1998 as part of a $246 million bond package.
The council will vote later this year whether to approve the $44 million needed to actually start building the reservoirs, one 23 acres and the other likely smaller than that. And construction along the Trinity River could begin by early next year and finish in 2016.
The idea passed with support from 12 council members, who cheered it as fulfilling a commitment to voters. But two council members, Sandy Greyson and Philip Kingston, voted against, offering deep reservations about what actually was being accomplished.
“We are going to be getting lakes, sort of,” said Greyson, who referred to the lakes as “puddles.” “They are very, very small. And the hope, not the certainty, … is that they will someday get bigger.”
As we reported this morning, the lakes are being pitched as the first phase of a plan to build out three larger reservoirs over time. The ultimate goal would be to build a 90-acre Urban Lake, a 56-acre Natural Lake and a 128-acre West Dallas Lake.
The problem is that there isn’t currently additional money to grow the lakes beyond their initial footprint. The $31.5 million in 1998 bond money devoted to lakes has been mostly drained, with $8 million expected to help fund the smaller version of the Urban Lake.
And fulfilling the broader vision – often pictured on an epic scale in renderings from over the years – could be prohibitively expensive because of project constraints related to water sources, bridge piers and proximity to the Trinity.
But city officials said the phased approach harkened back to the original pitch to voters in 1998.
Though the proposal then also included a grand plan for multiple lakes, officials initially hoped to begin by constructing a $12 million, 33-acre lake. That idea was eventually scrapped, after some criticized the starter lake as an embarrassing “stock pond.”
Council Member Vonciel Jones Hill, chairwoman of the Transportation and Trinity River Project Committee, said on Wednesday that current proposal – smaller versions of the Urban and West Dallas lakes – was progress.
“The projects that we are talking about today will … have intrinsic value to the city of Dallas,” said Hill, who was echoed by council members Tennell Atkins and Jerry Allen.
But Greyson said she worried about how closely the lakes are tied to the contentious, largely unfunded $2 billion Trinity Parkway toll road, which she opposes.
While the dirt being dug to create the West Dallas Lake will help shore up the Trinity’s levees, the earth excavated for the Urban Lake will be used to create a “bench” to support the toll road. That’s why $26 million in toll road money can be used for the Urban Lake.
Greyson said she didn’t like the idea that the only way to bring the full lakes to fruition would seemingly be to continue building out the toll road’s bench.
Assistant City Manager Jill Jordan explained that the bench would still be important, even if the toll road is never built. It would raise some of the land near the lakes, allowing the public better access even when the Trinity floods a bit.
“The bench becomes a becomes valuable part of recreational amenities around the lake,” Jordan said.
Kingston, meanwhile, said that city officials should stop calling the project items “lakes.” He said that a 10-foot-deep body of water is more accurately described as a “ditch” and that the project was “so off track,” that he doesn’t think the city should even entertain it.
He said he was especially concerned about how the lakes would fill with water – and how the project would look.
“It’s not going to be pretty,” Kingston said. “It’s not going to be a recreational feature. It’s going to be a maintenance nightmare.”