"Homestead's open each and every day, even with a little bit of renovation we're doing, but to expand to the west, all the way into the Darby Watershed, it's going to take a couple of years for us to develop some wetlands, some trails, and even re-establish the prairies." That was Metro Parks Executive Director Tim Moloney in a video reported by Columbus Underground in September.
Hilliard's Ordinance 26-22, which authorizes the city to transfer the land to Metro Parks, took effect Wednesday, October 28. On Metro Parks' own park page, Homestead is now listed at 376 acres, "with 333 acres added in 2026." Most of that land is former farm fields and woods that will need years of restoration. The most useful piece for anyone already in the area is the network of paved paths that ties those fields together. Those paths run through Hilliard's newest neighborhoods, and they are already built.
A park that came out of subdivisions
Homestead used to be small. Columbus Underground put it at 44 acres off Cosgray Road before the transfer. At 376 acres, it is more than eight times that size. It didn't start as a Metro Park either. Washington Township acquired the land in 1990 and opened the park in 1992. After the township decided to dissolve its parks department, Homestead became a Metro Park on September 1, 2015.
The new acreage came from the housing going up around it. In 2023, Hilliard began requiring that 70% of land in new developments in the area stay open space. As NBC4 reported, the city says that goes beyond the 50% standard used by other communities in the Big Darby Accord. Hill Farm II shows how that works on a single site. Council approved it in March 2025 as a 300-home extension of the existing Hill Farm development near Elliott Road. Of its 265 acres, 186 are set aside as open space.
The city pieced the land together through agreements involving M/I Homes, Fischer Homes, Pulte Homes and Rockford Homes. The city's council packet lists the specific parcels:
- 4643 Elliott Road, 46.621 acres owned by the city
- Barbeau Lane, 23.058 acres owned by the city. Hilliard is keeping 2.244 acres there for the existing Orangeberry Water Tower and room for a second tower.
- Hill Farm and Hill Farm II, conservation land that includes the headwaters of Clover Groff Run. It will pass directly from M/I Homes to Metro Parks.
- Clover Meadows, about 35 acres along Clover Groff Run. Council authorized that transfer separately on June 8, 2026.
The city got both of its parcels as conservation open space tied to the Tarlton Meadows subdivision. Every acre on that list started as open space set aside under a development agreement. Hilliard's 2023 Community Plan called for this kind of result, a greenbelt along the city's western edge connected by shared-use paths. Metro Parks is getting the land at no cost, Moloney told 10TV. According to The Columbus Dispatch, council approved the transfer unanimously.
The paths came before the park
Because the land came from subdivisions, the paths connecting it were built along with the homes. Columbus Underground described paved trails that are already in place. They run through two housing developments and along several of the new parcels, linking the Heritage Rail Trail to Scioto Darby Creek Road near Audubon Road.
The ordinance also included a memorandum of understanding that changes who looks after those paths. Metro Parks already owned and ran Homestead and the Heritage Trail north of Hayden Run Road. Under the memorandum, Metro Parks is set to operate, maintain and patrol several trail sections it doesn't own:
| Trail section | Responsible before the MOU | Assigned under the MOU |
|---|---|---|
| Heritage Trail north of Hayden Run Road | Metro Parks | Metro Parks |
| Heritage Trail south of Hayden Run Road, about 2.4 miles | City of Hilliard | Metro Parks |
| Trail from Homestead Metro Park to the Tarlton Meadows subdivision | City of Hilliard | Metro Parks |
| Extension through the Hill Farm development to Scioto Darby Creek Road | City of Hilliard | Metro Parks |
The city's staff memo says Metro Parks takes on the long-term cost of maintaining and patrolling these sections. The memo compares the arrangement to agreements Metro Parks already has with other cities, including on the Olentangy Trail. According to NBC4, the city and Metro Parks will still coordinate on major construction and renovation of trails on city-owned land.
Once the memorandum is in force, the result is a continuous paved route under one parks system. It runs from the Heritage Trail through Homestead and west through Hilliard's newest neighborhoods toward the Darby side of the city. The paths stay as they were built, and Metro Parks takes over their maintenance and patrol.
Walking it this fall
Start at the original park. Homestead is at 4675 Cosgray Road, Hilliard 43026. Its 0.8-mile paved multiuse loop goes around the main activity area and connects to the 6.1-mile Heritage Trail. Metro Parks lists the loop as easy, ADA accessible and open to bikes, inline skates and pets. The familiar landmarks are still there: the covered bridge, the train station replica, the two barns and the 2.5-acre fishing pond.
From there, the connector heads west through the Estates at Hoffman Farms toward Tarlton Meadows, then continues through Hill Farm to Scioto Darby Creek Road. The City of Hilliard's announcement includes a map that shows the existing park, the new land in green and the trails between them.
Plan around the shorter days. Homestead's hours changed on October 1 to 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., and those hours run through March 31.
What the new acreage will become
The fields along the connector won't look much like a park for a while. Moloney told 10TV that restoration of prairie, wetland and forest would begin this fall and take a couple of years. He said the land will get trails and boardwalks but stay mostly natural. "You're going to see some prairies developed, probably some reforestation, probably redevelopment of wetlands that were there long before the farmers came in," he said.
NBC4 described the plan in similar terms: conservation and passive recreation, with possible natural-surface trails and boardwalks. Neither agency gave a timeline for those improvements. Metro Parks' own announcement says the new trails and activities are "all coming soon." No opening date, parking plan or construction schedule for the new sections has been published. For now, the new acreage is something to look at from the paved path.
The transfer matters beyond Hilliard too. Metro Parks says it brings the land it has preserved in the Big Darby watershed past 10,000 acres for the first time. Battelle Darby Creek and Prairie Oaks are also Metro Parks in that watershed.
November at the old core
The original park still has a full program calendar. These are the Homestead programs posted on Metro Parks' activity listings for November:
- Toddler Tuesday: Snow! on Tuesday, November 3, at 10 a.m. at the Barn Shelter, with a snow story and crafts for ages 2 to 4.
- Litter Clean Up on Sunday, November 15, at 1 p.m. from Lakeside Pavilion, an all-ages hike of 1 to 1.5 hours over mixed terrain.
- Preschool: Animal Tails! on Thursday, November 19, with sessions at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Barn Shelter, for ages 3 to 6.
- Beaver Moon Hike on Tuesday, November 24, at 5 p.m. from the Barn Shelter, an all-ages hike of about 1.5 miles.
No Homestead programs are posted for December yet. Program listings change, so check Metro Parks' Homestead page before you go. In early December, the city's own calendar moves to Hilliard's Station Park, where the City Tree Lighting runs from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 6.
For more on what's changing closer to Main Street, see our look at what's opening in downtown Hilliard. For the wider picture, start with our Hilliard neighborhood guide.
If you live near Cosgray, Elliott or Scioto Darby Creek Road and want to know how the greenbelt and the subdivisions around it fit together, we're glad to talk it through. At The Laumann Group, we follow Hilliard's western edge closely and would enjoy comparing notes on how it's taking shape.
