The Scraping of Old Lake Highlands

I have lived in or near White Rock Lake Park for 45 of my almost 60 years. Having lived in Old Lake Highlands first in the early 70’s, again in the 80’s and moving back for good in 2000, I have watched the neighborhood and the lake evolve over the years.

Most recently, I have lived at ground zero of significant change to our “Old Lake Highlands” neighborhood. Call it tear downs or scrapes, the face of the corner of Bondstone and Champa has changed. A year or so ago, a very run down rent house was torn down and a McMansion popped up faster than you can say, “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.”

Then, around the first of this month, the two houses next to the McMansion were torn down. One of those was an awful place and needed to go but 407 Bondstone, right across the street from me, was a great home with potential as a remodel. But, I didn’t own the property so that’s really not my call.

I thought back to a time, long ago, about 1982, when I was the first white guy, who dared move into a very tough, all Puerto Rican, forgotten area of Brooklyn, called Williamsburg. The landlord told me I had a million dollar view but he needed to “gentrify” the block. It was the first time I had heard that word. I didn’t last long. Moving in took a hour, moving out took 15 minutes because most of my stuff was stolen in two break-ins.

Williamsburg today? You can’t afford it.Perspective is hard when something you love just the way it is, is taken away. Even if you are poor and Puerto Rican living in a ghetto.

Old Lake Highlands is not being gentrified, that’s over. It was never a bad area but all of the original people, still many here, liked it and stayed and the area got old. Then, young people, families of all genders and shades, began to find and appreciate our funky little part of town and make it beautiful again. The neighborhood association started putting up signs, “Old Lake Highlands”.

Home sale prices have easily doubled in the last 15 years but now that’s not good enough. Our old homes don’t meet the standards for size that people are looking for, so we will, like other favored areas of town, be redeveloped.

We’ll probably need to change the signs to, “Old and New Lake Highlands” in the interim, until we finally get to, “New Lake Highlands”. Surely they won’t call it Old Lake Highlands when all of the houses are less than 30 years old.

I try to keep things in perspective remembering that this was once Blackland Prairie and post oak savannah. I was against the restaurant in the park but I would probably favor the return of a barge on the lake where people could dance under the stars like in the old days. I’m sure a lot of the “Park Advocates” will not like my position but I can’t see how sail boat docks that have been there for years are any different than a new rowing center.

There is an elitism that comes with protecting nature, protecting what you love and contributed to creating and sustaining so call me an elitist. Perspective requires me to remember that some naturalists might despise the dam and favor blowing it up and returning White Rock Creek to its original state. But I don’t agree with that. There is our history as a city, too, and that is worth preserving.

We all want that which we remember as “home” a place of love, fun, peace, quiet, and belonging to stay just as it is. But the fact is, it has never stayed the same.

As our memories fade in our minds, we don’t react well to seeing them bull-dozed, scraped away right in front of our eyes. I raised three boys in this neighborhood and I grew up only a couple of blocks away. The idea that I won’t recognize any of it in 10 or 20 years makes me keenly aware of the temporary nature of everything. Someday, this might be just a Blackland Prairie again, with overgrown ruins of brick and concrete.

I believe in property rights and people are free to do as they please with their property. That said, I wish people shared the same aesthetic that I do and valued the history of our neighborhoods. There are a number of beautiful remodels of these old 1600 sq ft homes around the neighborhood, turning them into 3,000 sq ft homes with an architecture that respects the surrounding community.

We finally met the new neighbors. I plead guilty to not being as welcoming as I could have been.They seem very nice and anxious to live in the neighborhood. I am disappointed we would make someone feel unwelcome simply because we don’t like what they are planning to do with their property.

However, I have talked to some experts. Property values and home values should continue to rise but three, half a million dollar houses across the street are probably going to cause our property taxes to go up. We are concerned we might not be able to afford to live here because someone decided they loved a neighborhood, cut down the trees and built a house that is totally out of character with the other homes.

I know they say they love the area but how do you love something and proceed to make your part of it completely different from the rest?

So, we might see a little increase in our home value, or we might have to move because of the taxes. We had hoped to live out our days here. That doesn’t seem as likely now and since we are middle income folks, we are scared a little about where we will be able to go.

Two big roofs will block part of the sky and change the light in our living room. That light is one of the reasons we bought this house and that is the part of all of this that will hurt the most. Sometimes there is no choice about change. I guess we’ll get used to it but we’ll always wish it hadn’t changed.