Most U.S. cities have tough questions to answer when it comes to creating new green space. How do you take an old harbor or flood levee and turn it into an appealing destination for residents from all walks of life?
The scenario is different for Fort Worth, said Brent Brown, an architect who serves as strategic adviser to Mayor Mattie Parker’s Good Natured initiative.
“You’re a very unique city in this country in that you are just over half built out,” he told City Council members on Jan. 9. “You have the opportunity to create open space and parks out of raw land, which is very, very unusual and a very strategic opportunity for economic development in your city.”
The exciting — and shrinking — window of opportunity is not lost on Parker. Thanks to rapid population growth, Fort Worth was losing about 50 acres of open space to development each week in 2019. That statistic led the city to create its open space conservation program.
In October, Parker announced her goal to preserve even more land — 10,000 acres of green space over the next five years — through the creation of a nonprofit land conservancy and the appointment of consultant Mark McDaniel to serve as the city’s first “green space champion.”
Three months later, McDaniel is no longer solely focused on Parker’s initiative. As Fort Worth’s new deputy city manager, McDaniel has executive oversight of green space, information technology, intergovernmental affairs and the planning-focused FWLab.
“If anything, it elevates the priority of the Good Natured green space initiative, as I will continue to work on this effort as a primary responsibility among a few others,” he said by email. “To date, this has really been an interdepartmental team effort, so it will continue in that way with me providing guidance, direction and focus.”
One of McDaniel’s first moves is conducting an aspirational study for the parks department, which will compare Fort Worth to peer cities with successful parks systems and identify recommendations for leadership, resourcing, planning, operations and partnerships. The study is separate from Fort Worth’s 2025 parks and recreation master plan accepting public input through the end of January.
A $300,000 contract with HR&A Advisors, the same firm finishing an economic development plan for Panther Island, will come up for council approval Jan. 23. McDaniel expects the study, and its examination of how parkland could be used in the next 50 years, to be finished by mid-summer.
“This is really important to make sure that we’re not just looking insular,” McDaniel told council members. “The message here is we’re not going to do away with all the great things that have been done to date. We’re going to build on that foundation.”
Alongside the aspirational study, Brown is working with city staff to decide the best path forward for a nonprofit organization to assist Fort Worth with open space conservation. Parker hired Brown, who previously led the Trinity Park Conservancy in Dallas, to serve as a consultant on Good Natured.
So far, Good Natured has set up a donor advised fund with the North Texas Community Foundation to house any private donations. Those donations could be used to set up a future land conservancy or land trust — organizations that acquire land and partner with landowners to prevent development on properties through agreements known as conservation easements. Conservancies also manage and restore land once the properties have been protected, according to the Land Trust Alliance.
A conservancy has the potential to move the region’s green space goals forward, Brown said. He pointed to Houston, where the city provides less funding to parks than the city of Fort Worth on an annual basis. However, thanks to private philanthropy and support from other agencies, Houston residents see more parks investment than Fort Worth residents do.
Every city is different, and Fort Worth leaders must decide on a strategy that complements existing conservation work rather than repeating it, he added.
“We’re methodically taking our time to be able to articulate that and then be able to work with the city or with others to be effective,” Brown said in an interview.
Any green space strategy will be developed in partnership with the Tarrant Regional Water District, which has signed on to collaborate with the city on open space policy. Parker said she is open to different options for the future of Good Natured, and wants each council member to have input on its priorities.
“I feel so strongly that if we don’t do this, we will ruin the city that we love today because having a city that is half developed without a real plan moving forward can be quite frightening, and you can’t let the private sector make all the decisions,” Parker said during the Jan. 9 meeting. “We’ve been very lucky that we’ve had some large developers and large landowners be excellent stewards, but we can’t be complacent.”
Brown wants to position Good Natured as a long-term investment that will result in benefits a century from now. While Fort Worthians will want to see immediate results, some changes will take more time, Brown said.
“Your park system and your open space assets are a result of decades and decades,” Brown said. “Nothing happened overnight, and it’s not going to change overnight.”
Haley Samsel is the environmental reporter for the Fort Worth Report. You can reach them at haley.samsel@fortworthreport.org.
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