Summer is the perfect time for a Texas road trip. From Palo Duro Canyon to Big Bend Ranch, there are plenty of state parks to choose from. But in future summers, Texans will have even more parks to visit.
In 2023, Texas voters approved a $1 billion investment in state parks. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has begun acquiring new land, conserving wildlife, and developing trails for public use.
Rodney Franklin, the department's director of state parks, joined Texas Standard with more about the new spaces and when Texans will be able to visit. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Where are these new state parks located? What are the highlights?
Rodney Franklin: First of all, we're looking across the landscape of Texas to try to find the best properties to make the next best Texas state park. Obviously, we want to focus on the Texas Triangle, where the population is, and a couple of properties we've been able to acquire are going to make great state parks.
And one of those, right there in Lampasas County and Burnet County, is called Post Oak Ridge State Park. It's aptly named because there's an incredible stand of post oaks on this property that will be the highlight of people's adventure to that area of Texas right there in the Hill Country: 3,100 acres, plenty of animals and trees and birdwatching opportunities, lots of trails, so we're excited to develop that property.
How do you go about acquiring land for new parks?
I think the first thing to know, and for us to understand, is to look where land is available. We have to have folks that are willing to leave a legacy for their family ranch. And then once we know those properties that might be available for acquisition or for sale, we have to do a lot of due diligence to determine whether or not it's going to be a suitable state park.
And that includes having something of suitable size: at least 500 acres to make a state park viable, give people plenty of room to explore trails, hopefully enjoy what will be water on the side, and do some wildlife viewing and those sorts of things.
And then we go about looking at the topography to see if it's suitable for development. Is there proper access? Is there access to electricity, water and utilities? And we go through a series of evaluations with our team, and we do some survey work as well.
And then once all those criteria are met, we work with the landowner to try to acquire the property and purchase it so that we can start hopefully developing the property for public access and make it safe for the people of Texas to use.
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You talked a little bit about getting ready to buy the land, but once you do purchase it, what does the department do to prepare for public use and conservation?
The first thing that we need to do is understand what we have on the property. First and foremost, we are conservation stewards in Texas Parks and Wildlife, so we want to protect and preserve these very historic and natural landscapes.
If there are endangered species, like golden-cheeked warbler, or if there are some rare or endangered species of fish or plants or trees or birds, we need to understand and know that first and foremost so we can take measures during the development to protect those species.
So once we really get a handle on what the property has to offer, we work with our infrastructure division and our state park planning team to lay out where the trails will go. Where will the tent sites go? Where will the cabins potentially go? Where will we have day use? Where will we have overnight?
We have to answer those questions, and all of that takes place by getting boots on the ground and looking at the landscape to try to lay out what will eventually be the park. And then once we do that, we work with a contractor to hopefully design and build what will eventually become the state park.
So that's a pretty lengthy process. I've just kind of shortened it very quickly, but there's a lot of work that goes on before we even turn the first shovel of dirt, and then after that, the construction time can take a little while as well.
Why the investment now? I understand there was some frustration about parks on leased land being shut down.
I think there's a lot of reasons that the state of Texas has come to understand that access to the outdoors is something that's important. And the other thing that is happening right now, as you well know, the population in Texas is growing.
So we have a lot more people, and there's high demand for the outdoors, and 95% of Texas is privately owned, which means we only have about 5% of publicly accessible land in Texas.
And while we're doing a great job with what we have, the growing population and the high demand for getting outside coming out of COVID has really shined a light on the fact that it would behoove us to increase access to outdoor space and natural space for the growing population of Texas. I think that's a big part of it.
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How can the public get involved in shaping these new parks? Are there opportunities for Texans to help with conservation or in the planning process?
That's a great question. I'm glad you asked. There's a couple of ways.
A lot of the properties that we have evaluated — well over 130 properties that we've evaluated over the past two years — have come from folks in the public that know we've been looking for land and have sent opportunities our way to evaluate or consider.
So that's one way: If you know of a piece of property that might make a great state park, to share that with the department. Now, we obviously have more opportunities than we are able to take advantage of, but we're certainly considering properties in various parts of the state that would be a great state park.
The other way is once we start thinking through the development process, there is a part of our process that is the public information part. So each of our state parks will put out a notice that we want to hear from the public on what amenities they'd like to see at a park, and that will go into how we design and consider what amenities we'll have at the park.
When can we expect the first new parks to open?
It's a good question. We just acquired Post Oak Ridge, but what we're doing in our process is we're having a phased approach to opening, so we can offer some public access within the first 12 months of acquiring the park.
So what that means is people will have hunting opportunities at Post Oak Ridge starting this fall. We've already started that process, and we will also be offering things like guided hikes, guided tours and some group activities within the first 18 months of acquiring the park.
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