By Hugh Fisher
hfisher@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLIS ó Depending on who you’re speaking to, a proposed greenway along Irish Buffalo Creek outside Kannapolis is either a blessing or a curse in the making.
Even with no funding in sight and only the most preliminary plans on the table, residents already have strong feelings about the greenway ó a gravel or paved path for walkers and cyclists that would follow the creek south from existing greenways downtown.
Kannapolis Parks and Recreation recently conducted a preliminary study of the area with grant money the city received from the Cabarrus Health Alliance and North Carolina’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund.
Cabarrus Health Alliance is interested because greenways near schools and neighborhoods can help promote healthy activity. From the environmental standpoint, greenways serve as natural filters and buffers for waterways by preserving trees and plants along the banks.
Thursday night, Parks and Recreation Director Gary Mills joined representatives from Site Solutions, the Charlotte-based engineering firm that did the study, to present preliminary ideas to residents and hear from them.
“This has been on the plans for almost nine years now,” Mills said. “We’re just trying to feel things out.”
Site Solutions’ preliminary plan shows a seven-mile greenway linking Village Park and the N.C. Research Campus to Concord via the new stretch and the existing Eighth Street and Bakers Creek greenways.
The new corridor would generally follow the path of Irish Buffalo Creek and existing utility easements south, with underpasses to carry walkers and cyclists beneath N.C. 3, Rogers Lake Road and Orphanage Road.
Last month, the Kannapolis City Council approved plans to raise a bridge at Orphanage Road during an already-scheduled replacement project so the future greenway could pass beneath the road.
The new route would eventually connect to other greenways in Concord and surrounding areas where Irish Buffalo Creek passes under Interstate 85 at North Cabarrus Park.
Mills said the location is vital because there is an existing underpass at the interstate.
Eventually, he said, the greenway would connect to other routes as part of the Carolina Thread Trail, a proposed network of greenways.
But nobody knows when that might happen.
“There’s no real construction money put forward now,” Mills said.
Even so, planners felt that now was the time to begin discussing the potential for the project.
Mills said developers of the Kellswater mixed residential and retail development, located along the proposed greenway path, were interested in discussing a possible connection.
But among the 17 locals who attended, there was a mix of doubt, opposition and support.
Jeff Ashbaugh, a landscape architect with Site Solutions, led the discussion after presenting maps and photographs of the proposed path.
From the start, residents of the Forest Glen subdivision off Oakwood Avenue in Kannapolis adjoining the area expressed concern because they were left out of a mailing announcing the meeting.
“I only heard about it from a phone call today,” Chrystal Conrad said.
Mills said the error was a mistake and apologized.
Others who live adjacent to Irish Buffalo Creek say a greenway is not what they want behind their homes or property.
John Llanio, who lives in Forest Glen, said he purchased his house because it is secluded.
Other residents raised concerns about security.
Don Measmer, who owns pasture along the creek, said he already deals with trespassers and vandals.
“I put up ‘No Trespassing’ signs. They tear them down,” Measmer said. “They’ve come out there with paintball guns and shot my horses.”
One of his horses died as a result of trespassers, Measmer said.
He believes a greenway would bring more trespassers while denying him use of part of his land.
“It’d be like a sidewalk,” Measmer said. He brought to the meeting a “No Trespassing” sign attached to cardboard. The opposite side of the sign read, “Land Not For Sale or Steal.”
Ashbaugh and Kannapolis Police Officer Tony Clark tried to address security concerns by pointing to very low crime rates along other Kannapolis greenways.
The greenway would be off-limits after dark and patrolled by Kannapolis Police officers, Clark said.
Llanio said that wasn’t the point.
“It’s the fact that at 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon I have a nice, non-criminal family walking through my backyard,” he said.
He also countered when Ashbaugh asked residents of the area what they would like to see in a greenway.
“We’ve got to get this thing to go away is what most of us on this side, I think, are saying,” Llanio said.
“Short of it not being there, I’d have it at least 10 feet off my property … (and) a stockade fence so the nice people wouldn’t bother my kids and my dog,” he said.
Others spoke favorably of the plan.
Richard Smith moved to Concord from Portland, Ore. He and his wife attended the meeting.
“I owned property along a greenway,” Smith said. “I was in your position and I went to one of these meetings and said I didn’t buy my property for people to walk through.”
But Smith said the greenway increased his property value by 7 percent and improved the neighborhood.
“This could not be a more positive thing for the community,” Smith said.
It’s anybody’s guess what lies ahead for the greenway plan.
Ashbaugh said Site Solutions and city staff would discuss the comments they had heard and would have another meeting “in about 40 days.”
But he couldn’t say whether that would take the form of another public session or a meeting of Parks and Recreation staff, or even a Kannapolis City Council meeting.
Mills expressed hopes that the benefits of the proposal would be recognized.
“We hope that everyone would recognize the value of a greenway and the opportunities it would provide to the community,” Mills said.