Charlotte Parks - the big picture...

[videtur quam contuor]

I tried skateboarding in my youth. This was years before the polycarbonate wheel and re-used steel wheels from clamp on street skates were used. These were a terrible idea. The wheel would catch on every imperfection of the surface and would roll over no pebble, crack, or debris. This meant the board would suddenly stall throwing the rider forward at the speed of the board and mayhem ensued.

Remove these wheels. Attach to board of teenager's own construction. Be certain wheel trucks aligned perfectly (HAH). Head down hill and call for EMT or reverse order of those last two items. Broken arms, much blood, concussions. The usual.

Street skates. The metal key is to tighten or loosen the clamps which fit on the skater shoe. The metal wheels on concrete drives and sidewalks transmitted every tiny imperfection through the feet and into the skater's skeleton. After 15 minutes I would have a break and realize my body was still vibrating from the skate sensation. Nothing smooth and comfortable about it. Now transfer this to a homemade board going downhill with gravity and imagine the dental repair fun.

 

By the time the technology advanced to make the sport more physically friendly I had aged out of the cohort. Vietnam was then a greater risk to consider for my age group, not skating.

[KJHburg]

while I was up in the north part of the county checked out the Cowans Ford Wildlife Refuge an 850 acre park but nothing but there is only an observation deck.  It is truly a wildlife refuge.  Down a gravel road and note to city slickers dont drive your new BMW down the gravel road and go only 5 mph LOL some of us have SUVs. 

Truly a great natural spot in busy Mecklenburg county only the Catawba River. 

[videtur quam contuor]

KJH you were on Neck Road and that house is Holly Bend in your last photo. Neck Road and Gilead Road, not far from there with the Torrance House and store, as well as Sample Road for the Latta Place were the finest homes in the county circa 1800. One passes Rural Hill on Neck Road which is the Davidson family home place. That is the heart of the settler history hereabouts. East Meck county has some history as well but the large homes with river access and their survival to our time are treasures. Enslaved people made the property operate, recall. If one goes exploring there PLEASE be careful. NO SMOKING in the area, no cars off gravel to avoid hot undercarriage caused fire. These fine old ladies would disappear in a trice.

[KJHburg]

Yes that was the Holly Bend house circa 1795.  That is a great looking Federal style house.  

found this on the Meck park website

This capital project includes the renovation of the historic Holly Bend House (circa 1795) located in Cowan's Ford Wildlife Refuge. 

 

[nicholas]

On 4/1/2022 at 8:13 PM, KJHburg said:

 Down a gravel road and note to city slickers dont drive your new BMW down the gravel road and go only 5 mph LOL some of us have SUVs.

I feel seen.

[KJHburg]

Not saying this enough but did you really know this?

From Mecklenburg County park website

Park and Recreation (mecknc.gov)

""The Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department is home to 230 parks and facilities located on more than 21,000 acres of parkland throughout Mecklenburg County.""

I just told you about those 600 acres of contiguous parkland up in Davidson on the greenway thread.  (Fishers Farm and Abersham) 

[JacksonH]

29 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Not saying this enough but did you really know this?

From Mecklenburg County park website

Park and Recreation (mecknc.gov)

""The Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department is home to 230 parks and facilities located on more than 21,000 acres of parkland throughout Mecklenburg County.""

I just told you about those 600 acres of contiguous parkland up in Davidson on the greenway thread.  (Fishers Farm and Abersham) 

This is good to know but you're right, this is far from enough.  San Diego is pretty far down the list at the link below -- #27 -- but Charlotte is a dismal 91st place.  Only 39% of Charlotteans are a walkable distance from a park, here in San Diego it's 81% (I can walk to four parks from my house).  Only 6% of Charlotte-Mecklenburg land is set aside for parks versus 21% here.  Access to open space is one of my major concerns about moving back.  (By the way, Raleigh is #31 on the list, so they're way ahead of the game compared to Charlotte.  Even that suburban nightmare called Atlanta places much higher.)

https://www.tpl.org/parkscore

[stw52]

Looks like the redevelopment of Discovery Nature Museum is back on: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc1PjVYs98D/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

[NCMike1990]

Wow, I had no idea the nature museum was that old.

[KJHburg]

This new Nature Museum looks great! 

[KJHburg]

Preservation of open and park space is just as important in the surrounding fast growing counties like Cabarrus.  Since I was down in Midland any way I stopped by Rob Wallace Park.  This park is about 150 acres and goes back a lot more than I thought.  Some walking trails, a frisbee golf course, huge playground,  a pond, and an old quarry now a deep lake.   Cabarrus has at least 3 Frolf courses frisbee golf courses I know of it and probably a couple more.    (and yes gold was prospected in this area) 

I will explore that quarry lake on my next visit. 

[CLT2014]

The Trust for Public Land updated their rankings yesterday. We remain near the bottom.... 83 / 100 cities ranked. This is an improvements from 91 last year. 

Our parks are among the largest at a median of 22.3 acres... however walkable access is low with just 37% of residents within a 10 minute walk of a park. It is worth noting Charlotte is ranked at a COUNTY level, because we don't have a city-level parks department.  The city limits are smaller than the actual county, so current vacant / rural areas that are unincorporated count as part of our total area. This is a variance from other ranked cities that are largely at the city level (i.e. Raleigh is ranked, not Wake County). 

The areas with the biggest needs for walkable parks to improve our rankings are pretty much all suburban.... as these areas aren't very walkable in general and you'd need a lot more parks within the large / sprawling subdivisions to get them near homes. Some subdivisions take 10 minutes to walk to the main road alone.

• South Blvd corridor (Starbrook, Sharon Lakes, et...),
• Most of the affluent communities of the South Charlotte wedge (Myers Park, Quail Hollow, Carmel Country Club, Ballantyne Country Club, Ardrey, Provincetown)
• The Independence / 74 corridor
• East Charlotte around Sharon Amity Road and all the way east to the county line
• Steele Creek subdivisions like Griers Fork, Berweick, Shopton Road corridor, and Steelcroft
• West Charlotte along Brookshire and the Piedmont and Northern Railroad
• North Charlotte outside of 485 and almost everything wedged between I-77 / I-85 and the Mallard Creek greenway.

https://charlotte.axios.com/296285/some-of-charlottes-parks-the-worst-in-the-country-according-to-new-study/
https://www.tpl.org/city/charlottemecklenburg-county-north-carolina

 

In some of these suburban areas... the relative newness and how sprawling our city boundaries starts to pull in HOA heavy areas. The Berewick subdivision in Southwest Charlotte is listed as "high needs" for a park in a 10 minute walk. These residents do have access to a park space in close proximity to their homes... it is just paid by their HOA dues within the massive development rather than owned by the County/Public agency. They have access to a sports field, sand volleyball, basketball, playground, swimming pool, et.... My hope if the County would use the ranking to focus on areas that truly don't have access to outdoor space
Berweick... High needs for a park. 

 

Sports fields and playground within the Ballantyne Country Club neighborhood... also listed as high priority for park access (not on the TPL map due to being owned by the neighborhood HOA)

 

In some areas, like East Charlotte, North Charlotte, and South Blvd, the neighborhoods are older. They don't have a fancy HOA funded park / resort in the middle of their neighborhood. They don't have playgrounds. They would greatly benefit from having access to more outdoor space than constructed when their homes were built.

Edited May 4, 2022 by CLT2014

[RANYC]

6 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

The Trust for Public Land updated their rankings yesterday. We remain near the bottom.... 83 / 100 cities ranked. This is an improvements from 91 last year. 

Our parks are among the largest at a median of 22.3 acres... however walkable access is low with just 37% of residents within a 10 minute walk of a park. It is worth noting Charlotte is ranked at a COUNTY level, because we don't have a city-level parks department.  The city limits are smaller than the actual county, so current vacant / rural areas that are unincorporated count as part of our total area. This is a variance from other ranked cities that are largely at the city level (i.e. Raleigh is ranked, not Wake County). 

The areas with the biggest needs for walkable parks to improve our rankings are pretty much all suburban.... as these areas aren't very walkable in general and you'd need a lot more parks within the large / sprawling subdivisions to get them near homes. Some subdivisions take 10 minutes to walk to the main road alone.

• South Blvd corridor (Starbrook, Sharon Lakes, et...),
• Most of the affluent communities of the South Charlotte wedge (Myers Park, Quail Hollow, Carmel Country Club, Ballantyne Country Club, Ardrey, Provincetown)
• The Independence / 74 corridor
• East Charlotte around Sharon Amity Road and all the way east to the county line
• Steele Creek subdivisions like Griers Fork, Berweick, Shopton Road corridor, and Steelcroft
• West Charlotte along Brookshire and the Piedmont and Northern Railroad
• North Charlotte outside of 485 and almost everything wedged between I-77 / I-85 and the Mallard Creek greenway.

https://charlotte.axios.com/296285/some-of-charlottes-parks-the-worst-in-the-country-according-to-new-study/
https://www.tpl.org/city/charlottemecklenburg-county-north-carolina

 

In some of these suburban areas... the relative newness and how sprawling our city boundaries starts to pull in HOA heavy areas. The Berewick subdivision in Southwest Charlotte is listed as "high needs" for a park in a 10 minute walk. These residents do have access to a park space in close proximity to their homes... it is just paid by their HOA dues within the massive development rather than owned by the County/Public agency. They have access to a sports field, sand volleyball, basketball, playground, swimming pool, et.... My hope if the County would use the ranking to focus on areas that truly don't have access to outdoor space
Berweick... High needs for a park. 

 

Sports fields and playground within the Ballantyne Country Club neighborhood... also listed as high priority for park access (not on the TPL map due to being owned by the neighborhood HOA)

 

In some areas, like East Charlotte, North Charlotte, and South Blvd, the neighborhoods are older. They don't have a fancy HOA funded park / resort in the middle of their neighborhood. They don't have playgrounds. They would greatly benefit from having access to more outdoor space than constructed when their homes were built.

Your analysis is spot on.  The Trust ranking doesn't tell the complete story, and doesn't accurately characterize the need in Charlotte nor is it a fair comparison.

I've lived in a few sunbelt cities and am an avid user of the parks.  Frankly, I think Charlotte does a great job with them and has great park "programming."

The Trust's process asks for "city data" on parks, and I think that's just what our Parks Department should provide - a disaggregated set of metrics on parks and population in the city of Charlotte and not necessarily for the entire system it oversees.  I wonder what our numbers would look like - anyone know if Reedy Creek is within City Limits? 

Edited May 4, 2022 by RANYC

[kermit]

23 minutes ago, RANYC said:

anyone know if Reedy Creek is within City Limits? 

About 80% of it is within the city limits. Red line is city limits per Google

[KJHburg]

Exactly we have plenty of HOAs with their own park network as a part of that community.  This is NOT common in the northeast as very few neighborhoods have community pools and rec areas.  I lived and worked in Davis Lake off Harris Blvd.  They have a huge swim club, 6 tennis courts,  over 2 miles of paved walking and biking trails, 14 acre fully stocked lake.  All residents of the 700 plus homes are within walking distance but in terms of a public park there is one nearby with ballfields but more than a 10 minute walk.

https://www.davislake.org  this is repeated in many other newer neighborhoods to some degree or another all over the city.   Berewick amenities are great.    As are the Palisades.  Highland Creek with over 5000 homes has 4 parks, 4 pools, a public 18 hole golf course and lots of amenities.  https://www.highlandcreek.com/parks-recreation/

That being said more parks and greenways are good especially in older neighborhoods.  

 

 

[KJHburg]

One more thing on this study making Washington DC i#1 is unfair to the rest of the country.  If we had the largeness of the Federal government behind our parks we would be #1 too.  I lived for 10 years in the DC area and almost every park in the District is Federal national park  and many in the suburbs are too.  See the list of Federal national parks in the DC area.  I am sure Meck Parks and Rec would love to hand over Freedom Park to the Federals and concentrate on other parks.    Rock Creek Park is a national park and is the largest park in DC. 

https://www.nps.gov/state/dc/index.htm   Even the parkways are parks along the river like George Washington Parkway on both sides of the Potomac.  I love DC area and think it one of the best world capitals on the planet but comparing it to cities that have to use local tax dollars to pay for the parks is an unfair comparison.  

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by KJHburg

[RANYC]

I thought of writing to the Trust to complain and encourage nuance in their reporting, but instead will target our Parks department to change their reporting to the Trust.  So sick of these negative headlines and branding.  Charlotte needs to be quicker to the draw with retorts to attacks on our brand, especially unfair ones.  The genial and meek southern sensibility has gotten old.  Chests out Charlotte!

[JacksonH]

"The time is now.  Land is not getting any cheaper."

In response to some of the comments above, yes, I know a lot of developments in Charlotte have private parks.  But vast portions of the city don't.  From my perspetive here in San Diego, the lack of parks is glaring.  Not only are there parks here in SD that are accessible to most neighborhoods, but there are several MASSIVE parks that are focal points for the city:  Mission Trails Park, Mission Bay Park, Balboa Park.  And Balboa Park is more than just a park: it's full of museums; an international cultural village; an outdoor amphitheater; a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater; beautiful architecture with plazas and fountains and performers that will make you feel like you're in Spain; great restaurants; the zoo; gardens; a golf course; and SO much more.  Throughout the city, there are parks for hiking along the coast and parks for hiking on mountains and in canyons.   And there are beach parks, of course. 

Obviously I know it's not possible for Charlotte to have all these things due to its geographic location.  But there are many assets it could be taking advantage of for all its citizens to enjoy, and not letting every piece of land fall into the hands of developers.  Time is ticking away.

Edited May 5, 2022 by JacksonH

[KJHburg]

Here is the plan for parks in the future for Meck County and they recognize need in certain areas and also to maintain what we have.

https://publicinput.com/MeckPlaybookExec    this came out in Dec. 2021

The part of this study that Meck is ranked low is accessibility to parks and that is the point I make with HOAs having private park systems within their communities.  I realize that is not the same as public parks.    

San Diego County has 3x population that Meck has and is much bigger 4526 sq miles vs Meck's 546 sq mile.  Plus we don't have huge mountain peaks, deserts, 70 miles of beaches either LOL.  Even if you look at the western 1/3 urbanized part of the county of San Diego is still twice the size of Meck.  I love San Diego and it is the best city by far in California. 

from the Biz Journal article about this and someone from there interviewed someone at the Trust who did the ranking:

""“They have some of the highest amount of acreage to maintain and the largest land areas,” Will Klein, Trust for Public Land parks researcher, told CBJ. “And, so, that creates a lot of opportunities for them and what they’ve really done well in the last couple of years is to move from (being ranked in) the 90s to where they are today. They’ve really invested a lot more.” Klein said few cities in the nation have made larger strides than Charlotte of late. He cited the expanding greenway system as an example. County-owned greenway trails now run more than 60 miles.""

so it appears we are moving in the right direction and as I said I open object to DC being the best in the country in parks (and that it may be due to all the Federal parks)  Not a fair comparison as I stated. 

 

[JacksonH]

2 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Here is the plan for parks in the future for Meck County and they recognize need in certain areas and also to maintain what we have.

https://publicinput.com/MeckPlaybookExec    this came out in Dec. 2021

The part of this study that Meck is ranked low is accessibility to parks and that is the point I make with HOAs having private park systems within their communities.  I realize that is not the same as public parks.    

San Diego County has 3x population that Meck has and is much bigger 4526 sq miles vs Meck's 546 sq mile.  Plus we don't have huge mountain peaks, deserts, 70 miles of beaches either LOL.  Even if you look at the western 1/3 urbanized part of the county of San Diego is still twice the size of Meck.  I love San Diego and it is the best city by far in California. 

from the Biz Journal article about this and someone from there interviewed someone at the Trust who did the ranking:

""“They have some of the highest amount of acreage to maintain and the largest land areas,” Will Klein, Trust for Public Land parks researcher, told CBJ. “And, so, that creates a lot of opportunities for them and what they’ve really done well in the last couple of years is to move from (being ranked in) the 90s to where they are today. They’ve really invested a lot more.” Klein said few cities in the nation have made larger strides than Charlotte of late. He cited the expanding greenway system as an example. County-owned greenway trails now run more than 60 miles.""

so it appears we are moving in the right direction and as I said I open object to DC being the best in the country in parks (and that it may be due to all the Federal parks)  Not a fair comparison as I stated. 

 

San Diego and Charlotte are actually somewhat compable in terms of size.   The San Diego CSA metro population is 3.2 million.  The Charlotte CSA metro is close to 2.9 million.  So not that different.  (Mecklenburg County vs. San Diego County is a false comparison because San Diego County covers a huge land area almost the size of Connecticut and contains the entire San Diego metro area.)  I remember years ago Charlotte city leaders were studying San Diego because they saw the two cities as being similar.  While Charlotte is probably going to surpass San Diego in size in about 30 years, San Diego is currently leaps and bounds ahead of Charlotte in parks, and also public transportation.  As for the parks (and I did acknowledge in my post above the geographical differences between the cities and the limits to what Charlotte can offer), Charlotte has been doing a great job with new residential developments including parks, and the greenways are wonderful ( I have walked the portion in Uptown and was very impressed) but I think we all agree that much work needs to be done bringing parks to older communities, especially lower income communities.  And Queens Park simply MUST happen.  I see that as Charlotte's version of Balboa Park.  But Charlotte also needs its own version of Mission Trails Regional Park, which is over 7,000 acres.  And yes, it's owned by the city and is within the city limits, and offers fantastic hiking and mountain biking opportunities.

[carolinaboy]

I don't know if this has already been posted but here is a link to an interactive map about Mecklenburg County parks:

 

Meck Co Park Explorer

[joenc]

Well, according to that playbook the #1 thing is equity so it's safe to say there won't be any improvements to the actual parks.

Goal should be having the best parks in the country, not these high-minded platitudes. Everyone knows what good parks are and look like, they've been building them for 150-200 years!

[Nathan2]

 

22 hours ago, RANYC said:

I thought of writing to the Trust to complain and encourage nuance in their reporting, but instead will target our Parks department to change their reporting to the Trust.  So sick of these negative headlines and branding.  Charlotte needs to be quicker to the draw with retorts to attacks on our brand, especially unfair ones.  The genial and meek southern sensibility has gotten old.  Chests out Charlotte!

why would we complain instead of just continuing to push for better parks? Even in the good central parts of the city your are still often far from a park. Charlotte doesn't have a lot of parks where its possible to just stroll around and enjoy a picnic, a lot of the parks are just straight up ball fields. It also doesn't help us that the construction of greenways are moving at a snails pace. It shouldn't be this hard for a city of our size to build miles and miles of greenways. It seems like we've only added a mile or two a year. 

[RANYC]

On 5/5/2022 at 3:33 PM, Nathan2 said:

 

why would we complain instead of just continuing to push for better parks? Even in the good central parts of the city your are still often far from a park. Charlotte doesn't have a lot of parks where its possible to just stroll around and enjoy a picnic, a lot of the parks are just straight up ball fields. It also doesn't help us that the construction of greenways are moving at a snails pace. It shouldn't be this hard for a city of our size to build miles and miles of greenways. It seems like we've only added a mile or two a year. 

The parks dept has been working very hard with what they’re given and Charlotte’s movement up the ranking is absolutely extraordinary.  The media narrative on this ranking is completely off in my opinion.  Given Charlotte’s prevalence of HOA communities, I think it’s reasonable to emphasize destination quality of parks over quantity of them.  I love our system.  Sure we should always strive for better, but persons and planners in government are always taking crap.  I volunteer at the parks and if you have strong feelings about the state of our parks I’d encourage you get engaged.  The movement up the rankings should be celebrated.  Sadly we don’t have good sentiment polling on how people who actually live here think about their access to green-space and recreation, either through public parks or through their own private HOA systems.  I could be wrong because I don’t have the survey data, but I sense that a significant number of people love the system and have their favorite places,  and think the right balance is being struck between public land acquisition, access and programming, and using funds for other priorities like public housing, etc.  Perhaps Trust should include local popular sentiment as an input into its rankings before branding a system.  
 

Might be important to consider origins of these massive parks as well.  Yes, mission trails is huge, but was also a grant from the US government because it had been used as a military training installation and then other industrial uses, including dynamite for mining.  For Charlotte to feel inadequate for not going out and trying to fund  a 7000 acre park like San Diego, when it was a privatization of a military asset, would be misguided.  Forget Trust rankings.  Parks & Rec should perhaps poll its people and if those numbers poll high, then the system is serving the community commensurate with the need and that's what matters.
 

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by RANYC

[kayman]

On 5/4/2022 at 11:07 AM, CLT2014 said:

The Trust for Public Land updated their rankings yesterday. We remain near the bottom.... 83 / 100 cities ranked. This is an improvements from 91 last year. 

Our parks are among the largest at a median of 22.3 acres... however walkable access is low with just 37% of residents within a 10 minute walk of a park. It is worth noting Charlotte is ranked at a COUNTY level, because we don't have a city-level parks department.  The city limits are smaller than the actual county, so current vacant / rural areas that are unincorporated count as part of our total area. This is a variance from other ranked cities that are largely at the city level (i.e. Raleigh is ranked, not Wake County). 

The areas with the biggest needs for walkable parks to improve our rankings are pretty much all suburban.... as these areas aren't very walkable in general and you'd need a lot more parks within the large / sprawling subdivisions to get them near homes. Some subdivisions take 10 minutes to walk to the main road alone.

• South Blvd corridor (Starbrook, Sharon Lakes, et...),
• Most of the affluent communities of the South Charlotte wedge (Myers Park, Quail Hollow, Carmel Country Club, Ballantyne Country Club, Ardrey, Provincetown)
• The Independence / 74 corridor
• East Charlotte around Sharon Amity Road and all the way east to the county line
• Steele Creek subdivisions like Griers Fork, Berweick, Shopton Road corridor, and Steelcroft
• West Charlotte along Brookshire and the Piedmont and Northern Railroad
• North Charlotte outside of 485 and almost everything wedged between I-77 / I-85 and the Mallard Creek greenway.

https://charlotte.axios.com/296285/some-of-charlottes-parks-the-worst-in-the-country-according-to-new-study/
https://www.tpl.org/city/charlottemecklenburg-county-north-carolina

 

In some of these suburban areas... the relative newness and how sprawling our city boundaries starts to pull in HOA heavy areas. The Berewick subdivision in Southwest Charlotte is listed as "high needs" for a park in a 10 minute walk. These residents do have access to a park space in close proximity to their homes... it is just paid by their HOA dues within the massive development rather than owned by the County/Public agency. They have access to a sports field, sand volleyball, basketball, playground, swimming pool, et.... My hope if the County would use the ranking to focus on areas that truly don't have access to outdoor space
Berweick... High needs for a park. 

 

Sports fields and playground within the Ballantyne Country Club neighborhood... also listed as high priority for park access (not on the TPL map due to being owned by the neighborhood HOA)

 

In some areas, like East Charlotte, North Charlotte, and South Blvd, the neighborhoods are older. They don't have a fancy HOA funded park / resort in the middle of their neighborhood. They don't have playgrounds. They would greatly benefit from having access to more outdoor space than constructed when their homes were built.

Berewick Regional Park is already planned in the Meck Playbook master plan. However, it won't get built until the River District and the rest of the Berewick master plans are fully constructed. The Berewick Regional Park is demarcated on Google maps and the land is already owned by Mecklenburg County via the tax assessors website GIS viewer. A small portion of the park land is open behind the Berewick Elementary School off Dixie River Road.  The portion is built out is sports fields like Renaissance Park but they're is a significant part will be passive space with trails. Hopefully some passive open space to allow picnics and gatherings.

It supposed to be 195-205 acres upon being fully built out. 

https://www.mecknc.gov/ParkandRec/Parks/ParkPlanning/Pages/Berewick.aspx

https://www.steelecreekresidents.org/Newspages/news652_BerewickPark.htm

 

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by kayman