Southeast Raleigh resident Michelle Lambert came to the Wake County Board of Commissioners meeting Monday evening with what she called “a heartfelt plea”: protect Lake Crabtree County Park from commercial development.
“It’s more than a park,” Lambert told the board during the public comment session. “It helps make Wake County special. It’s a place to hike and to bike, and families, workers, visitors—we all benefit from the trails, the trees, and the natural open spaces. It’s a place to breathe, to connect with nature.”
But it seems like a done deal: Wake County announced last week that it plans to close most of the trails at Lake Crabtree County Park on Sunday, June 1, ahead of the expiration of its lease of the land with the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority, an agreement that has been in place since the 1980s. The Airport Authority wants to use about 136 acres of the property for what it calls an entertainment district, a component of its long-term Vision 2040 master plan.
Residents still think they can persuade Wake County’s Board of Commissioners to save the parkland, however.
“You, the county commissioners, can protect the land,” Jean Spooner, chair of the Umsetad Coalition, told the county commissioners at the Monday meeting. “You have the power to ensure the last 30 years of community use [of] mountain bike trails continue.”
Spooner and several other speakers leaned on legal arguments to make the case that the county commissioners have the authority to preserve the trails. They emphasized that the same board of commissioners zoned the property for residential and highway use in the 1980s, and no state or federal laws have been enacted since that would change that zoning, despite the Airport Authority’s ownership of the park.
The Airport Authority says that the Federal Aviation Authority requires it to make money off the leased land that it owns. Speakers disputed this point as well.
An attorney for the local mountain biking group Triangle Off-Road Cyclists, or TORC, has argued that a fair-market-value exemption exists for community recreational use, Spooner told the commissioners.
“Protect your zoning, protect your flood control structure,” Spooner told the commissioners. “Protect the most popular county park in your county.”
Speaker Jessica O’Toole made a poetic plea to preserve the natural ecosystem of the parkland.
“To be able to easily hike and enjoy nature in such a vast forest in the middle of a city is truly a rare treasure,” she said. She added that she and her husband, a birder, spend all of their free time walking the park’s trails.
“We look forward to the haunting song of the wood thrush in the morning and a chorus of a thousand frogs at dusk,” O’Toole said. “In the summer, we watch for the return of the osprey. We have seen otters scamper along the creek and beavers splash in the water. We have been chased by snakes and surprised by turtles. In the fall, thousands of spider webs glisten on the trees, and the variety of colorful mushrooms on the forest floor is truly spectacular. During the winter, we watch for the eagles. I have never seen so much wildlife.”
Speaker Seth Stansberry echoed comments about the importance of having recreational green spaces for residents’ mental health and urged the commissioners to move to a month-to-month lease arrangement.
“The park is very important to me. It’s important to my family, and I think it’s something that we can’t replace if we lose it,” Stansberry said.
The park’s lakefront facilities, including the boat launch and picnic areas, won’t be part of the commercial development, according to the Airport Authority. Wake County commissioners so far have not indicated that they plan to step in to preserve the park, but residents plan to continue to appeal to them over the next month.
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