The Big Cedar Wilderness area is being planned as a new Dallas City Park.
The 282-acre site is located in far southwestern Dallas off Eagle Ford Road near Mountain Creek Parkway south of I-20.
The Big Cedar Wilderness area is composed of 12 hiking and biking trails, which are maintained by the Dallas Off-Road Bicycle Association (DORBA) in collaboration with the Mountain Creek Community Church, which sits adjacent to the trails.
“Big Cedar is such a unique topography here,” said Ed Brownstein, DORBA vice president of operations, as reported by NBC DFW. “We love it. Mountain bikers love it. Hikers love it.”
If the land becomes a City-run park, DORBA will continue to maintain the trails, according to Brownstein.
“DORBA is a nonprofit,” he said. “No one has ever taken pay from DORBA. It’s all volunteers.”
The nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL) has worked to negotiate a deal between the property owners and the City.
“When a property is privately owned, it’s up to the landowner what happens to it and there’s no saying what could be down the line 5 or 10 or 20 years,” said the TPL Texas State Director, Robert Kent, according to NBC DFW. “By transferring it to the city, by conveying it to the city and turning it into a formal public park, that will protect this property for public use in perpetuity.”
On Tuesday morning, Kent delivered a presentation to the Dallas City Council Quality of Life, Arts, and Culture Committee detailing this plan.
“We’ve been exploring this opportunity. We’ve been working with them for a number of months now,” he said. “We’re hopeful that everything is going to work out for this contribution to move forward.”
So far, a letter of intent has been signed, and “due diligence is underway with appraisal, environmental site assessment, and survey work,” Kent’s presentation explained.
In the meantime, according to his presentation, “TPL is working with the landowner to facilitate [the] transfer of property to [the] City of Dallas,” with the goal of bringing the item before the City Park Board and the City Council this spring.
“We enthusiastically support our colleagues at Trust for Public Land and DORBA in their efforts to ensure Big Cedar Wilderness becomes a protected public space,” Kathryn Bazan, vice chair of the Dallas Sierra Club, told The Dallas Express.
“The conservation of these nearly 300 acres brings an exceptional recreational value and is the best outcome for this natural space and the people who enjoy it.”