SAN ANTONIO – Just off the side of a fairway and newly planted trees sits a neighborhood that may be most known by the golf course that bears its name — Northern Hills.
If you ask for directions to a home in this neighborhood, the golf course will likely serve as a guidepost. It’s hard to believe the community almost lost it.
The Northern Hills Golf Course was once privately owned and about to be sold to apartment developers when the neighborhood came together to fight and eventually persuade the City of San Antonio to buy it. The now-city-owned golf course brings a sense of pride for neighbors, along with the Northeast Senior Center, but it doesn’t mean Northern Hills and its neighbor Valencia don’t have challenges.
The two neighborhoods are separated by Nacogdoches Road and sandwiched between Wurzbach Parkway, Interstate 35 and Loop 1604 on the Northeast Side. They share more than Nacogdoches, though. Whether it’s community events or neighborhood citizen patrols, the aging communities are facing a lack of involvement. They also have infrastructure challenges of broken water pipes and shifting soil.
The once-major selling point of having a community pool is now a thing of the past: Northern Hills’ pool sits empty and abandoned and Valencia’s pool is filled with dirt. Both are a clear sign of the challenges these neighborhoods face: an aging population with a lack of young families and funding.
People who live here firmly believe the good in these neighborhoods will bring younger families back, but is the commitment to working together gone? In this episode of “Know My Neighborhood,” we explore the good, the bad and the frustrating in Northern Hills/Valencia, and the neighborhoods’ desire to have community involvement now and in the future.