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Austin City Council Approves Edible Landscaping on Public Parkland (Texas)

The Austin City Council unanimously passed an amended version of the Holly Shores Master Plan on the evening of August 28th, which includes Phase One (<1 acre) of the Festival Beach Food Forest!

It may sound far-fetched, but the newly-passed, 99-acre Holly Shores Master Plan includes an edible forest garden, free and open to the public, on a patch of parkland just east of I-35. Adding to the already bustling local food movement in Austin, the Festival Beach Food Forest (FBFF) is a pilot project to grow fruits, nuts, vegetables and herbs on city-owned land, using novel low-water and low-maintenance methods.

On a household scale, growing food in East Austin is nothing new. Once inhabited by Native Americans, then by German and Swedish farmers, and Mexican American families, the rich soil of the surrounding neighborhoods has supported residents for generations. Today, food forests already provide organic produce and hands-on garden education at several local schools, thanks to the leadership of students and teachers in partnership with the Austin Permaculture Guild and EcoRise Youth Innovations.

Building on this legacy, the East Feast Coalition is working to make larger public agriculture projects easier to establish. The Coalition’s FBFF project envisions 2 acres of parkland transformed into a verdant and productive edible forest — with no fences. Produce will be freely available to neighborhood residents, the RBJ Center food bank, and other members of the public. Urban Patchwork (FBFF’s parent nonprofit), the City of Austin’s Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Community Garden Program, Urban Forestry Program, and other city officials are collaborating to support the delicious vision.

Neighborhood activists have passionately persevered to protect the natural tranquility and neighborhood character of Holly Shores since the 1970s, and the Master Plan officially protects the area from commercial development. As a community resource, the food forest will be tended by volunteer stewards from surrounding neighborhoods, and independently financed by grants and donations.

You can read some press coverage of the project here.

4 Comments

  1. Woohoo! A little sad I moved away from Austin. Doing permaculture on my own land is wonderful, but community works like that are really exciting. Wishing them all the best!

    1. On the positive yields side: the parking lots and impervious cover could be useful for harvesting rainwater, if the topography is conducive; there’s a “billboard effect” as progress and successes are very publicly visible (and not just to immediate neighbors); and since it’s close to the Lower Colorado River; there’s probably some decent alluvial soil onsite (a big deal! I moved from Austin to Hays County, about 20 miles southwest, and soil depth is a major challenge here); and the bee hives get some built-in privacy. Their site plan is here: and it looks like such ideas (and much more) are being integrated.

      On the “ready for solutions” side of the project, I hope that the project designers will avoid placing hyperaccumulators (prickly pear cactus and cilantro come to mind–both major components in the foodways of the locals) in spots where such plants will grow to be inedible; that the reflected heat from those thermally massive surfaces nearby won’t spike the water budget; that they get their soil tested for concentrations of [heavy] metals and other toxics like pesticide residues (testing can be costly); and that rapid widespread local buy-in will obviate the need for 24-hour monitoring. I’ve planted public spaces in the midwest and carefully watched other greenspace urban projects in my old neighborhoods, and am always astonished what people will do to trees and plants [with no legs to run and no mouths to scream].

      Dana, if you’re reading this: good luck! These kinds of projects restore some of my hopes about Austin, and this project could not come at a better time or place.

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