Warner Woods Nature Preserve is one of five new parklands being designated by Columbus as targets for the city's conservation efforts as development continues to eat up land in the metro area.
Columbus City Council voted Tuesday to designate the northeast Columbus tract of woodlands, prairie and wetlands as a nature preserve. The other four include Coronet Woods in North Linden; Woodstream near Blendon Township; Overbrook Ravine Park in Clintonville and Island View along the Olentangy River near Worthington.
The designated parklands total over 70 acres. The five nature preserves join 20 others with the same designation dating back to the city's first nature preserves near Hoover Reservoir in the 1980s.
Tina Mohn, Columbus Parks and Recreation's Natural Resource and Property Manager, told WOSU the neighborhoods near these preserves don't have many parks nearby. She said North Linden's Coronet Woods was almost bought by a developer.
"It is like one of the only tracks of more than two acres in this area of town, that we should be looking at anyway for parkland," Mohn said.
The city's existing nature preserve portfolio includes Rush Run near Antrim Lake and Hayden Run Falls near Griggs Reservoir.
Warner Woods is already being developed for public use. There is a boardwalk with a couple of benches built through the wooded part of the area; a playground, shelter and parking lot being built in the south part of the park; and a larger building being constructed in the northern part.
Despite the construction activity, the forest was alive with wildlife Tuesday including ducks, squirrels and about a dozen other bird species.
But not all of these parks are as accessible yet as Warner Woods. Woodstream in particular has no built trails or even an entrance. That land is abutted by neighborhoods and Big Walnut Creek.
"When we acquire it, we are acquiring it to save trees or to save threatened and endangered species, or to help protect a stream or a wetland in some of the spaces that we acquire," Mohn said.
Mohn said they bought some of these properties recently and discovered these special traits before making the decision to ask city council to designate them as nature preserves.
"We just recognize that because we've acquired it as a green space, it has value in perpetuity being just green space," Mohn said.
The 25 nature preserves in Columbus are not distributed evenly in terms of geography. A map of the parks shows no nature preserves exist south of 5th Avenue.
Mohn said the city's goal is to look strategically at where they are "under parked" and decide where to place these new parks. She said they are looking most at the far west, north and northeast parts of the city.
"But not because of necessarily development pressure. It's just looking at the spaces that we would consider to be nature reserves because of the characteristics," Mohn said.
Mohn said as development continues to balloon Columbus' population, it is important for the city to continue to buy land and conserve it where they can. She said they are taking a long, hard look at the entire city for this.
"We understand there's a lot of development pressure in the city of Columbus. We understand there's a huge population growth. We understand that these spaces...they could be at risk," Mohn said.
