One group’s effort to preserve trail systems and wildlife in Parr Park and another’s effort to increase emergency response times and mobility has been a topic of controversy since Grapevine City Council announced in June that construction of a Heritage Avenue bridge could potentially be part of a proposed bond package.

Grapevine residents have been divided on whether the City Council should include the $8.1 million project that would connect the northern and southern ends of Heritage Avenue on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The debate came to a head Aug. 10 when Grapevine City Council announced which bond projects were going to be listed on the November ballot. The council not only decided to remove the Heritage Avenue bridge project from the list, it also removed the other three transportation projects that were up for consideration as well.

The council agreed on a $24.5 million bond package for the November ballot, which includes an animal shelter, two fire stations and renovation of the Grapevine Golf Course. Chief Financial Officer Greg Jordan said residents will not see an increase in taxes if the bond propositions pass.

Council Member Darlene Freed said the council would like to let the new public works director, Bryan Beck, look at the transportation projects before asking residents for bond funds.

“As we all know, we have had a lot of discussion and a lot of different views relative to one [project] in particular—Heritage [Avenue bridge]—and I know we got some good ideas about some options that may satisfy the citizens,” she said. “I think we need to give him some time to do the work.”

Freed said although the transportation projects, which included extending Heritage Avenue from Mustang Road to SH 26; raising Dove Road; constructing Euless-Grapevine Road between Hughes Road and SH 360; and the Heritage Avenue bridge, were not placed on the ballot, they can still be done.

“I think it’s important to remember that we don’t have to have a bond election to do some of these things,” she said. “Some of the things that we think are important—we have the resources to do that.”

However, the Heritage Avenue bridge connection is not likely to be discussed again for potential funding. The council gave staff direction to remove it from the thoroughfare plan.

“The people have spoke,” Mayor William D. Tate said. “You can’t satisfy everybody, but the large majority rules. I think it needs to be put to bed forever.”

The debate over the bridge

A Heritage Avenue connection has been planned since 1968 when it first appeared in city documents.

The plans show a bridge, or connection, going through a heavily wooded flood plain along Bear Creek. The bridge was to be constructed as two lanes and would include connecting Parr Lane to Heritage Avenue.

In the months leading up to the council’s Aug. 10 decision, Grapevine residents had formed two different groups—Heritage Bridge Busters, who are against the bridge, and Connect Grapevine, who are in favor.

Pippa Robe, a resident who lives in close proximity to where the bridge was proposed to have been built, was in opposition to the bridge.

“The way that a city develops changes over time,” she said. “And the way [the city] builds out the roads changes, and to me, the city has made the very best use of that area given that it is a flood plain.”

Robe, who helped organize the opposition group, said a majority of the opposition was against the bridge because of the effect it could have had on Parr Park and the nearby trails.

“We just built the Wall Farrar nature preserve and then we are going to have a road running right next to it. It just doesn’t go together. Why would you invest in a nature preserve and then surround it by road?”

Robe said she would have been in favor of the project had it not been going through Parr Park.

“I think it sounds good and if it wasn’t going through a nature preserve or in a well-used recreational area—if it was just going through a field somewhere—then that’s fine,” she said.

Paul Schaefer, a resident who is in favor of the bridge, said it would have increased mobility for those residents wanting to get from South Grapevine to North Grapevine.

“There’s no direct northern route for me—it’s either [SH] 121 or Pool Road—so either way [those living in South Grapevine] are having to go on a state highway just to get to the other portion of our city,” he said.

Those in favor said the bridge would have also helped emergency responders increase their response times and get to neighborhoods within the suggested national standard response time of four minutes.

Residents in opposition have argued there are other ways to improve emergency response times, such as adding an ambulance to Fire Station No. 4, which does not have an ambulance, or adding another fire station.

Fire Chief Darrell Brown said there is no quick fix to the problem besides the bridge, which would help improve emergency response times, particularly in the area near Parr Park.

“Just adding an ambulance isn’t going to help,” he said. “The only way to really combat the response time issue that we are dealing with is if the citizens voted to add the bridge, because then we know from Station 3 we can get to some areas that are right off Parr road in less than four minutes to help improve our response times.”

What’s in the bond?

The proposed bond package will be broken into three propositions.

One of the propositions is a new animal shelter, which would be built at the same location as the existing one.

The package also includes the relocation and the replacement of firehouses 2 and 3, which will be voted on in a single proposition.

The third proposition, If passed, would allow for Grapevine Golf Course’s clubhouse and concourse to be completely renovated into a multipurpose facility.

Grapevine’s last bond election was held in 2013, when residents voted for a new public safety building as part of a $68 million bond package that also included funding for the new REC of Grapevine. Prior to that bond, City Manager Bruno Rumbelow said the last bond was in 1998. Rumbelow said the 1998 bond was the last bond that included transportation projects.

“All the street projects have been completed for awhile—that were approved in 1998—and The REC is complete and the Public Safety Building will be complete in September, so we have the capacity financially to be able to do a bond issue without raising taxes because our debt [from 1998] has rolled off,” he said. “It just makes sense to do one now.”