In a victory for neighbors and advocates of Hilltop Needmore Town Park in Fuquay-Varina, the town will no longer move forward with a $10 million plan to build four athletic fields, a restroom building, and parking lots on about 5 acres of natural space.
At its regular meeting Monday night, the town’s Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to amend the 2022 Hilltop Needmore Town Park Master Plan and direct town managers to revise the scope of the plan. The newly adopted plan offers some early design elements and ideas for lower impact recreation.
Mayor Bill Harris, who helped facilitate conversations between residents, park advocates, town leaders, and town staff said before the board’s vote that there is “healing in dialogue.”
“For us to come together and have a conversation that seemed to move us forward—that’s the entire goal of our effort here, to move forward and to do healing, and to build community,” Harris said. “Because there’s a disagreement, we don’t have to be enemies. We’re part of the same community. We were just looking at things somewhat differently, and I’m so glad we’re at this point now.”
The Wake County Board of Commissioners gifted the park, formerly the Crooked Creek golf course, to the town in 2019. It is home to diverse wildlife and popular for its serene walking trails. In June, town leaders included $10 million in the town’s budget to fund the 2022 master plan, and selected a design-build firm in July to spearhead the project.
Later in July, residents of the nearby Crooked Creek Homeowners Association requested a meeting with town officials to discuss the park plans. Harris, Town manager Adam Mitchell and others met with the HOA leaders in August “and invited representatives of the Hilltop Needmore Town Park Advocacy group,” according to the agenda.
“Town officials listened to residents’ concerns about environmental disruption, wildlife impacts, and effects on neighboring property owners,” the agenda states. “In late August, the Town Manager recommended exploring an alternative project scope. The Town Board approved exploring the option without committing to a formal change in direction.”
Over the following months, the town’s Board of Commissioners worked with staff to develop an alternative scope of the plan, which was presented to the community in September and October meetings, generating “positive stakeholder feedback” on the new concept.
The $10 million budgeted for athletics fields at Hilltop Needmore Town Park will be redirected to acquiring property “for a future active recreation/athletics park,” according to the agenda. The amended master plan will be funded with $5 million redirected from a different project at Kennebec Road Town Park that town staff recommended delaying.
The amended park plan will maintain undeveloped areas of the park as green open space with tree canopy and pedestrian trails, and the town may add pollinator gardens, landscaping, benches, picnic shelters, playgrounds, pond piers, boardwalks, and natural trails. The town may not build new parking lots on the park property, but it has an option to add parking on a parcel it owns close to the nearby South Lakes Greenway Trail.
The new master plan lays out a low-impact vision that won residents’ approval for two parcels of land on the property where the fields would have been built. Near what’s known as the Red Trail, the amended plan calls for a destination nature playground inspired by Unity Park in Greenville, South Carolina, and an 18-hole putting course inspired by the Pinehurst Thistle Dhu course. On the Blue Trail parcel, the plan features up to six lighted pickleball courts, an exercise challenge course, trailside fitness stations, shaded benches, and a reading nook with Adirondack chairs.
“One of the things notable in this master plan is it aims to retain the existing tree buffers and maintains the … alignment of the Blue Trail,” Mitchell, the town manager, pointed out during his presentation at the meeting. “There is no intended relocation or alteration of the Blue Trail.”
The decision to adopt an amended master plan didn’t come without a tradeoff, however. The agenda notes that the original plan would have been more cost-effective and would have meant that the much-needed youth athletics fields would be built faster. With the new plan, those facilities will be built within four to seven years rather than right away, and at a much higher cost, potentially requiring a future tax rate increase.
But the town’s management still recommended amending the plan in order to “achieve community harmony and to plan for a dedicated athletic park elsewhere,” as Mitchell put it during the meeting.
“Conversely, the amended plan better reflects the community’s expressed vision, maintains open space along the Red and Blue trails, adds unique passive and low-impact amenities not currently available elsewhere in the Town’s park system, and retains many elements of the original 2022 plan,” the agenda states.
Ashley Manstedt, a Fuquay-Varina resident and longtime advocate for the park, thanked the town’s staff and leaders for being willing to work with the residents toward a compromise.
“I hope we can continue to work together so years from now, many others can find on those trails what I have found,” she said during the public comment period before the vote. “Quiet connection, restoration, the room to breathe, and a beautiful piece of God’s green earth that has been worth saving and a privilege to fight for.”
Following the commissioners’ vote, residents in attendance at the meeting broke into applause.
