Interesting story in today’s Morning News about the potential development of Garland Road just east of White Rock Lake, particularly the area between Gaston Avenue and the White Rock Lake spillway. The first salvo apparently will be a bridge for cyclists and pedestrians straddling Garland Road where the semi-chomping railroad trestle once lived; former councilman Gary Griffith predicts in the News story that we’ll see some significant private development at the Gaston/Garland intersection within 12 months.
There are really two "Garland Roads", in my opinion. The area from the Spillway south can be developed pretty quickly and relatively painlessly, I think, because other than the YMCA, there’s not a whole lot around there that anyone is dying to save. But move north from the area around Walton’s Garden Center north, and anyone who thinks the Garland Road transition will be simple had better buckle up for a bumpy ride. We’ve seen a small bit of the dichotomy between the pro-development and the anti-development residents along Garland Road here at Back Talk during the past few months; while some people are all for bulldozing the strip and building forth, others don’t want to touch anything there and aren’t going to suffer silently if anyone else tries to.
It’s going to be a little messy, I suspect, but it’s the kind of conversation that the surrounding residents and landowners need to start having — with each other and the entire community, and not just among a few people who want to draw up a plan for everyone else — to determine what the Garland Road Corridor ultimately will become.
