HOUSTON—A neighborhood in Houston’s Fourth Ward is accusing the city of breaking a promise to children.
It has to do with a plot of land that used to be a playground. The city found back in 2006 that the park on Allen Parkway was contaminated, and the whole place was shut down.
Neighbors said the city promised to clean it up, so their children would have someplace to play.
"We were demanding they open the park up since the kids had no place to go," said Lenwood Johnson, a board member of the Freed Man’s Neighborhood Association. "If you don’t give the kids an opportunity to get involved in activities, they get involved in trouble."
But the for-sale sign on the property shows that’s not the city’s plan.
"It is being sold," said Andy Icken, the City of Houston’s chief development officer.
Icken says the high cost of removing the toxic soil made the city decide on another option.
"The original plan, [the] cost for the park, to remediate it and recreate it, was over $3 million," said Icken. "We believe we can accomplish even a better park, not having to spend the money for remediation, we’ll let the buyer of a park do that, for something less than that."
Neighbors fear it’s another promise the city will break, but now they’re also questioning something else.
"As soon as we found there was anything there that would affect the public we closed the park," said Icken.
The park closed four years ago, but documents suggest the city of Houston knew the land was contaminated with lead as far back as the late 90s. Later studies revealed more chemicals in the soil.
"You have just about every heavy metal that we first start looking for—chrome, cadmium, arsenic, lead, mercury," said Matthew Tejada, the executive director of Air Alliance. "They’re all present here at high concentrations on a piece of property that was used by children."
Now Mark House wonders what he was exposed to in the park.
"For me to hear all the metals and contaminants here when I was a kid, kind of terrified me," said House.
And community leaders say they want their park back, no matter what Houston is offering.
"Tell Annise (Parker) to go back and get that $6 million she gave to Walmart and leave our park alone, fix it, so our kids will have somewhere to play," said Johnson.
And so a neighborhood park is now in the middle of a playground fight.
