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- EXPRESS NEWS-Article about Our PondPosted on: 2007-03-23It's not the Garden of Eden, but the Eden duck pond is a big source of pride for the 1,237-house subdivision.
Betty Sides, the Eden Homeowners Association president, said the pond is an oasis of water and green space along busy Thousand Oaks Drive.
Eden will mark its 30th birthday this year. The first houses were built in 1977 on what then was farmland with small ponds, rolling pastures and thickets of oak trees, Sides said.
Several years ago, a resident who bought a house in 1979 said he remembered when there were four ponds and only 100 to 200 houses in the subdivision.
Eden was annexed by the city of San Antonio in 1985 and it began providing fire protection to the subdivision, which before that had to rely on a volunteer fire department.
The duck pond, which also has turtles and sometimes fish, is adjacent to the main entrance of Eden and is a focal point for many of the neighborhood's residents.
The pond area has several stone tables, benches and a seating area and also features a peninsula. Several duck houses that look like doghouses dot the shoreline of the area. The houses shelter the ducks from heat and cold.
The HOA was started in 1992, around the time the last houses were constructed, to handle community issues such as upkeep of the front entrance. The HOA was able to get 1.7 acres at the subdivision entrance donated for what would become the pond and one of Eden's signature landmarks, said Sides, who has lived in Eden since 1985.
The other landmark is a giant oak tree at the entrance located in a curb-encircled island that also contains a monument with the Eden name.
The tree, believed to be about 300 years old, was hit by lightning more than a decade ago and showed the scars but survived. In August 2003, strong winds from a summer storm blew the tree down, leaving Sides and fellow Eden residents wondering what to do.
The HOA decided to keep as much of the tree as possible,and today it provides shade to sleepy ducks and a reminder to residents of the resilience of their neighborhood.
In the past three years, the Eden HOA has planted more than 100 trees and bushes around the pond entrance and along the edge of Thousand Oaks Drive.
On a recent spring-like day, Richard and Rachel Rodriguez and their grandchildren visited the duck pond from their home a mile or so up Thousand Oaks Drive and outside of Eden.
Sides said nonresidents visit the pond but are cautioned by a warning sign to be careful and that the HOA accepts no responsibility for any mishaps or injuries.
'We come here about once a week, sometimes on weekends,' Robert Rodriguez said as granddaughter Amber, 6, and grandson Johnathon, 4, looked for turtles and fed bread to ducks.
'I love ducks, but I like turtles best,' Amber said as she squatted to get a better view of some ducks waddling in and out of a duck house.
As Johnathon raced around the pond, grandmother Rachel smiled.
'They get good and tired after visiting here,' she said, 'and they really love it when there are ducklings because they are so cute to watch.'
Sides said she hopes the pond can be used as a learning tool for students at nearby Wetmore Elementary School and other schools.
'We want it to be a living lab where students can make field trips and work on nature projects and do research. Our pond gets a good variety of birds, including egrets, and would make a good place to study,' she said.
Preserving the pond and the ambiance and quality of life in Eden has been an ongoing battle.
The water in the pond all but disappeared in recent times because of drought and leakage. The HOA had the bottom treated with a clay-like substance, Sides said, to stop the leakage and the water returned, but it still is about a foot lower than normal.
But there is enough water for an aquatic ecosystem that supports turtles, ducks and other birds, giving people a chance to watch the wildlife.
As if to underscore the fight to save the Eden pond, land next to the waterway is being cleared for a metal building that will hold a retail business, Sides said.
And she pointed to an auto repair business located along Tavern Oaks, the entrance road into Eden. The HOA was opposed to the location but couldn't stop the business from locating there.
Sides said the auto repair business works hard to be a good neighbor.
'They keep their site very clean and paint over any graffiti right away, and we are glad about that,' she said.
She said Eden residents realize that development will happen along Thousand Oaks Drive but hope it doesn't overshadow the bucolic feel of the subdivision.
Eden has many of the same issues as other neighborhoods, including graffiti, Sides said.
'I think we have a very safe neighborhood, and our crime rate is low,' she noted.
The subdivision's location is one of its prime assets.
'It is very convenient to almost anywhere from Eden. We have good access,' she said.
The neighborhood's population still is primarily owners instead of renters, but a number of properties in Eden have been purchased by West Coast investors as rental property in recent years, she added.
Chuck McCollough
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER
