Proposed Development in Wake Forest Draws Ire from Neighbors, Environmentalists

Sixty-eight acres of wild, undeveloped forest located on Harris Road could soon be the site of Wake Forest’s next mixed-use subdivision. 

Church Street Company, a Raleigh-based developer, is under contract to buy the property and put up high-density housing and commercial buildings on about 50 acres. There’s high demand for new housing options in the fast-growing town, but the plan has come under fire from environmental advocates and development-averse neighbors alike. Nearly 6,000 people have signed a petition to keep the property wild and undeveloped. 

At first glance, the forested property across the street from E. Carroll Joyner park doesn’t look like much. The young loblolly pines abutting Harris Road are unremarkable. Go deeper into the woods, though, and pines give way to oaks, elms, hickories, beeches, sycamores, sassafras, and dogwoods. Beneath their canopies sprout native ferns and flowering shrubs. Newts, thrushes, salamanders, tree frogs, snakes, and box turtles call the forest home. A stream winds through the northern part of the parcel, flanked by a steep bluff and old growth trees. 

Local experts call the forest an “ecological jewel” and “some of the highest value biological lands in the Wake Forest jurisdiction.” Church Street plans to preserve about 20 acres as open space, but some neighbors say that’s not enough.

Wake Forest resident Angela DiPaolo founded the nonprofit Joyner-Harris Forest Conservation to advocate preserving the land as is. Others object to the plan for non-environmental reasons: at a public meeting on July 9, many local residents in attendance told the developers they worried a new subdivision filled with “transient” renters would overburden their schools, roads, and emergency services. 

The parcel’s fate is now in the hands of the Wake Forest planning board, which is reviewing Church Street’s proposal to rezone the land for mixed-use development. The planning board will send a report to the town’s Board of Commissioners, who will make the final decision this fall.

If the request is granted, Church Street will move ahead with its high-density housing plan, which involves the creation of some 400 units—about 300 apartments and about 100 townhouses or cottage homes. If not, the group will build a 40-lot subdivision of single-family homes on the property instead—an alternative that doesn’t require rezoning and wouldn’t preserve any open space. 

Wake Forest’s planning director declined to comment until the planning board completes its report, which is anticipated in September. Members of the Board of Commissioners also declined to comment.

Some in the neighborhood would welcome a 40-lot subdivision. At the neighborhood meeting, when a member of the Church Street team floated that option to attendants, the room broke out in cheers and applause. 

“All we’ve really ever wanted to do is find a plan that the town would approve,” George DeLoache, a member of the Church Street team, tells the INDY in an email. “Under the current zoning, we can do a subdivision with very expensive homes on large lots. If the rezoning fails, we will do just that.

“But this doesn’t seem to be the best use of the property,” he adds. “Not from our perspective, not—we believe—from that of the environmental advocates, and not from the town’s planners.”

The current owner, Jane Pate, agrees that Church Street’s plan to leave about 20 acres of the property undeveloped represents a good compromise. 

“Our family really has been behind a compromise, to do something for the town that would be beneficial to everybody,” she says. “So, [we’re] trying to cobble together all of the interests: the town plan itself…the interests of the conservation group…and also the neighbors.”

The Harris Road development in context

In 2022, Wake Forest published a new Community Plan outlining its housing, development and zoning priorities—which include the creation of more mixed-use, higher-density housing options. It also calls for an “enhanced focus on preserving open space [and] maintaining a lush tree canopy” and the creation of better public transit options. 

The plan is a response to Wake Forest’s skyrocketing population: the town has grown from 14,000 people in the year 2000 to nearly 120,000 today, a 307 percent increase. The rapid growth calls into question how to accommodate new residents while preserving Wake Forest’s small-town character.

In 2023, the Board of Commissioners rejected an earlier version of Church Street’s development proposal for the Harris Road parcel because it didn’t align with the Community Plan. The original proposal called for 226 housing units on the property, a mix of townhouses and single-family homes. 

So Church Street went back to the drawing board and returned with a proposal for a 400-unit, mixed-use subdivision that the group believes will win the commissioners’ approval. In revising the plan, the team also made adjustments they hoped would appease the neighbors: about 20 acres of preserved open space that would include some of the most ecologically valuable forest; 50-foot forested buffers between the subdivision and the road; and a commitment that buildings would be a maximum of three stories tall and not rise above the treeline. 

Environmental advocates call for complete preservation, town involvement

Local environmental advocates say that Church Street’s updated plan for the Harris Road property doesn’t go far enough to protect the site’s unique habitats and natural features. They would prefer that the town purchase it and designate it as a nature preserve or park. 

DiPaolo, who founded the Joyner-Harris Forest Conservation, says she met with town officials and asked them to apply for grant funding to do just that.

“They basically told us they didn’t have the money to match the grant funding,” DiPaolo says. “So we’re hoping, with continued community pressure, that maybe they’ll be able to come up with that.”

DiPaolo also approached the Durham-based Triangle Land Conservancy, a nonprofit, to see if it might be able to help the town purchase the land. TLC was interested but unable to find a partner in either the town or the current landowner, Pate.

“TLC offered to work with the town and landowner to raise funds to try to purchase the entire tract or at least 40-acres of the highest quality land,” says Leigh Ann Hammerbacher, TLC’s director of land protection and stewardship. “TLC would have used town funding to leverage county, state, and private funds to preserve the highest quality areas. Unfortunately, the town did not have a dedicated source of funds at the time to support the conservation project.”

Hammerbacher estimates the property is worth between six and seven million dollars. DeLoache declined to share the terms of Church Street’s contract with Pate. 

Joyner-Harris Forest Conservation also met with Church Street and urged them to preserve as much of the forest as possible, suggesting they develop only 20 acres of the least ecologically rich parts of the parcel. 

Joncie Sarratt, a member of the Joyner-Harris Forest Conservation team, says that Church Street’s second draft of its rezoning proposal is disappointing. 

Fifty-foot forested buffers to block the subdivision from the road “is not a lot,” Sarratt says. “If you’re not at the height of summer, you’re still gonna see straight through. And that doesn’t further do anything to protect the wildlife… or the native plant species that are there that are going to be going through two to three years of construction, noise, and disruption.” 

Sarratt characterizes Church Street’s decision to preserve the bluff and wetlands area on the north side of the property as a “false olive branch,” since the area has uneven terrain and would be difficult to develop.

“You’re claiming to be working with the town and to have environmental preservation in mind, but really what you’re giving us is an area that isn’t ideal for you either,” she says.

DeLoache defends Church Street’s plan for the Harris Road parcel.

“We can’t preserve all of the property, but we believe that our proposed preservation efforts are generous,” he writes. “We are protecting the portion of the property that our own environmental consultants and local advocates say is the most critical.”

“The one thing that seems to unite all of the folks who are opposed is their preference that the site not be developed at all,” DeLoache adds. “But that’s not an option.”

Reach Reporter Chloe Courtney Bohl at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].