elpasonaturally: Facts and Myths about Preserving El Paso's Only Scenic Corridor

Charlie Wakeem and Richard Teschner led the fight to preserve Resler Canyon which is now the Wakeem-Teschner Nature Preserve managed by Frontera Land Alliance.

Charlie Wakeem has been one of the principal leaders of the natural open space conservation movement in El Paso. Beginning with his efforts to preserve Resler Canyon, Mr. Wakeem has influenced the master plans for open space and stormwater. He has been an architect on the re-write of several ordinances and codes. Charlie Wakeem is now the Chairman of the Open Space Advisory Board for the City of El Paso.

The op-ed piece below also appeared in yesterday's El Paso Times:

You’ve recently read about the proposed upgrades to Transmountain Road on the west side of the Franklins, including the rezoning—to Natural Open Space—of 800 acres of Westside Master Plan land. I’d like to dispel some myths about that.

One of the myths is that the Open Space Advisory Board wants to sabotage the $80 million expansion of Loop 375 (Transmountain) from I-10 to the Tom Mays entrance of the Franklin Mountains State Park. We’ve also been accused of squelching any development of public land in Northwest El Paso, thereby undermining the Westside Master Plan. Other misinformation: the Public Service Board owns that land; taxpayers will suffer if the land is not sold to developers; the present Westside Master Plan is too good to be changed.

Texas Department of Transportation has used the proverbial carrot stick to persuade us that, as submitted, its Transmountain expansion is necessary. The carrot is the $80 million to widen/upgrade the 3.3 miles from I-10 to the Tom Mays entrance. Are parts of the carrot too rotten to eat? OSAB thinks so.

One important fact: the Transmountain Road Scenic Corridor is the ONLY scenic corridor in the City of El Paso. The Scenic Corridor begins at the Gas Line Road about half way east of I-10. [See slides below.] West of Gas Line is private property and flatter land good for development. OSAB has no objection to the freeway-style construction with overpasses and frontage roads there. The gas company wisely placed its pipeline just below the scenic foothills. That’s where the hillsides, deep arroyos and canyons begin, and that’s where the PSB’s Westside Master Plan is located.

OSAB also has no objection to widening Transmountain from two lanes to four at grade level from Gas Line to Tom Mays, where the present road widens to four lanes and crosses the mountains toward Highway 54.

So that the City can remove (from I-10 to Gas Line) the Mountain Development restrictions along Transmountain that the developers want removed, OSAB made five recommendations to City Council (now undergoing the rezoning review process): (1) Expand the landscape buffer by 10’ on either side of the roadway in the privately-owned section between I-10 and Gas Line. City Planning recommended this for public safety purposes. Research showed that a minimum 20’ buffer between the hike/bike path and roadway was necessary. (2) Don’t remove the Mountain Development restrictions east of Gas Line. (3) Construct an exit ramp north from Gas Line and parallel to Transmountain into Tom Mays for a safe entrance. (4) The fourth and most important recommendation is: delete the Paseo del Norte overpass half way between Gas Line and the Park. (5) The fifth is to rezone, to Natural Open Space, about 800 acres. Many of these 800 acres are currently zoned Residential with plans for Commercial. The final recommendation is that the City negotiate a conservation easement with a land trust to perpetually preserve the 800 acres.

Will El Paso Water Utility ratepayers pay much more in water bills if the PSB land is not sold for development? No. EPWU claims it would sell the land for $20 million. El Paso currently has 177,000 ratepayers. The very most the ratepayer would save is a once-only $112, and that’s being generous.

The land within the Westside Master Plan is City land, thus public land. It does not belong to the PSB, which owns no land anywhere. The PSB only MANAGES land. We citizens of El Paso own this public land. Only City Council, representing us, can choose to preserve OUR land and OUR Scenic Corridor, or else sell it off for development.