Fuquay-Varina’s Departments of Planning and Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources (PRCR) have good news for all our citizens. In July, the Town Board approved a new PRCR five-year Facilities Plan.
Facilities Projects for the Next Five Years
The plan includes a ten-million-dollar list of attractive projects to be completed in the next five years. Here are the highlights.
Action Park (½-mile west of downtown Varina on Fayetteville Road)
2021 Restroom/Concession Renovation $20,000
2022 Tennis Lights on MUSCO System $10,000
2022 Dugouts/Scorer’s Tower Field #3 $40,000
2023 Tennis Court Replacement $180,000
Alston Ridge (northwest of town) and Hidden Valley
(southeast of town)
2021 Alston Ridge Greenway Design $125,000
2021 Hidden Valley Greenway Design $208,000
Ballentine School Park (off Sunset Lake Road)
2021 Lights on Fields #1 & #2 $295,000
Carroll Howard Johnson Environmental Education Park (south of the Community Center)
2022 Trail Improvements $250,000
2022 Bridge Replacement $75,000
2024 Comfort/Restroom Station $85,000
Hilltop-Needmore Town Park & Preserve (west of Johnson Pond Road)
2021 Clubhouse Renovation $691,950
2022 Park Master Planning $150,000
2025 Additional Investment $TB
Falcon Park (opposite the Middle School)
2023 Dugouts/Scorer Tower $65,000
Downtown Dog Park (¼-mile east of the Mill in downtown Fuquay)
2021 Shade Structure $12,000
Honeycutt Road Park (¼-mile west of Highway 55)
2021 Bathroom Renovation $25,000
2021 Irrigation Field #3 $9,000
2024 Playground Replacement $125,000
South Park & Community Center (Main & Judd at south of town)
2021 Field Bathroom #1 & #2 Renovation $12,000
2021 Community Center Activity Area Redesign $25,000
2022 Gym Floor Resurfacing $20,000
2023 Repave Track—South Park $30,000
2023 Community Center Roof Replacement $30,000
Community Center North/Senior Wing (in Hilltop-Needmore Town Park & Preserve)
2021 Design/Engineering Fees $650,000
2023 Construction $6,500,000
In the town board’s discussion of the plan, Commissioner Marilyn Gardner noted that the old library and park were not mentioned. Town Manager Adam Mitchell reminded the board that in 2020 the town stabilized the building with a new roof and air conditioner. It also made changes to the policy to allow the museum group to build a depot replica next to the caboose. Mayor John Byrne urged that they find ways to keep its building open more hours. Those deliberations satisfied the board, which approved the plan unanimously.
Much credit for creating the successful plan goes to the leadership of Jonathan Cox, Director of PRCR, who has spent half of his 25-year career in Fuquay-Varina. In my recent interview with him, I learned that he was first attracted to parks and recreation in a course at Wingate University, where he took his bachelor’s degree. Experience in Morrisville and Burlington, as well as in commercial construction prepared him for his current position. Fuquay-Varina attracted him as a fast-paced, growing community with a supportive town board, that understands the importance of PRCR.
While here, Mr. Cox has led the development of 500 acres of parkland, a new arts center, greenway trails, massive renovations at Fleming Loop Park and Hilltop-Needmore Park including a forthcoming community center with senior wing. The collaborative skills needed to manage PRCR include working with designers, construction contractors, maintenance workers, program providers, planners, volunteers, and the public. Even the county’s gift of the former four-million-dollar golf course at Crooked Creek led to major investments by the town. The clubhouse needed a new roof, air conditioning system, and other maintenance to ready it for being an assembly and rental space for our citizens. FY 2021 also includes funds to bring the building up to Americans with Disabilities Act Standards prior to opening to the public.
The Facilities Plan preparations began in 2017 with meetings to get public input and provide feedback. At those meetings, the staff listened to users and conducted surveys to learn what they wanted. The top priority mentioned was greenways, but an aquatic center scored second. The cost estimates to maintain and staff an aquatic center, however, were equivalent to the entire five-year PRCR budget, so it will have to be re-evaluated at some later time.
Additional parks came out third and a senior center fourth in the survey. Hilltop-Needmore Town Park and Preserve goes far toward meeting the demand for more parks, especially on the north end of town, and as a double blessing has enough land to house the senior center. Mr. Cox informed me that putting the center there allowed it to be in one of the town’s Preferred Growth Areas (PGAs, see the next section of this story).
The design process for the combined Community and Senior Center will begin this year. Users who want to input about this facility should go to the town’s website (fuquay-varina.org). Under “Departments,” select “Parks Recreation and Cultural Resources.” Scroll below the big icon “Stay Informed” and click on “Additional Info…” There, we can sign up for “Parks & Recreation Information.” PRCR will send out alerts through this list, other lists, postcards, the senior coalition, and the chamber of commerce. Typical components sometimes included in a senior center include a reading library, billiards’ room, pickleball court, and fitness room.
PRCR markets all programs and brochures, digitally, through the school system, and at the community center. It has many youth athletics offerings and takes registration online or in-person at the community center or PRCR. Leslie Boller handles the marketing and special events for the department.
COVID-19 has created much uncertainty. No one knows what the next 30 or 90 days will bring. Last spring, PRCR had to close all playgrounds as well as cancel youth athletics and senior community-center programs. Director Cox reported that it will probably stay that way until we get a vaccine. Nevertheless, he urged everybody to stay engaged and involved in PCRC. “We offer something for everybody, a very diverse set of parks that meets everybody’s needs.”
Preferred Growth Areas
My first interview question for Planning Director Pam Davison was about “preferred growth areas” (PGAs). She informed me that they are areas located along transportation corridors with logical extension of public utilities. As described in the town’s recent application for expanding its extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), “The PGAs have historically been used to identify areas of planned or anticipated growth, and to steer capital improvement plan projects specifically for water and sewer infrastructure expansions, as well as to inform likely areas for development.” People can find the ETJ proposal on the town’s website by entering “etj expansion” into the search box. The proposal describes all the PGAs in detail. By statute, the town could request up to three miles based on population, so 22,049 acres were in the original ETJ expansion request and ultimately 9,215 acres were approved.
After getting such a thorough answer, I asked Ms. Davison to tell me the source of her love of landscape architecture. First, it was a compromise between STEM skills resulting from her father’s profession as a mathematician and her interest in something more creative. It was the second source that caught my attention. She grew up in one of the first modern planned cities, Columbia, MD. Her family lived just across town from its famed founder, James Rouse, who she met several times in her youth. She has been in southern Wake County for 17 years and with Fuquay-Varina’s Planning Department for two.
Learning Fuquay-Varina’s GIS Maps
With each of my two-dozen Suburban Living stories, I learn new things, but the meeting with Ms. Davison was unusually productive. She prepared for it with eight maps on her browser, shared with me using Microsoft Teams (videoconferencing software designed for collaboration and file sharing). Maps have been a favorite topic of mine since my family’s 500-mile trips back east began at age eight, leaving little to do on a 13-hour, pre-interstate trip except peruse roadmaps and imagine what the symbols would look like when we finally arrived at them. In less than an hour, Ms. Davison taught me many new details about how to use the town’s maps. It turned out to be so valuable, that I told her I would share the basics with our readers.
During virtual academy days, not only voters but also many teenagers might become fascinated with the town’s GIS maps. The acronym stands for “Graphical Information System” and the amount of information they contain is astonishing. To use them, access the town website, select Planning, under Departments, and click on “FVGIS Web Map” in the rightmost column. Next, click the link under the same heading. When the map comes up, note the 10 icons in the upper right corner. The first icon looks like three tiles suspended in air. That is the powerful Layer List. Click in the “Transportation” box and choose an “Existing Streets” option. Next, the “Town Jurisdiction” box reveals the ETJ. To figure out what we are seeing, an X in the upper right corner of the Layer List menu removes it so we can use the “Legend” icon.
Playing with the Layer list reveals that some options are greyed out. This is especially true for “Places of Interest & Recreation.” To make the options active, zoom in (either use a mouse-wheel or the + and – boxes on the upper left). The Greenways option requires a zoom in to such a small section of the map that looking at the 2014 Community Pedestrian Master Plan will help (find that on the town website by putting “pedestrian” in the search box).
Greenways
Greenways may be completed by developers or with public-private partnerships between developers, granting agencies, and the town. In preparation for a grant application, the town often does the initial planning to get them “shovel ready” (their engineering is complete). Fuquay-Varina is lucky to have Professional Landscape Architect Pam Davison direct its Community Pedestrian Master Plan. Perusing that plan reveals already identified greenways and guides for future development. Ms. Davison informed me that greenways, like road improvements, are developer driven. “The more people who work on a quilt, the easier it is to fill the gaps.” The maps show the gaps and the town looks for opportunities to create big connections. The town recently applied for a grant to help update its Pedestrian Master Plan but will not know if they were selected until October.
Planning Our Town’s Future
I asked about the impact of COVID-19 on town activity now and after restrictions are removed. As far as board meetings are concerned, Ms. Davison believes we are likely to move to more hybrid approaches. The town invested in equipment to meet legal requirements for public meetings and videoconferencing has been very useful for development meetings. She added, “I’m really excited that the Planning Department has been able to provide the same quality customer service throughout the pandemic as before.” The Planning Department continues to review a variety of proposed subdivision and site plans and is excited about a major new commercial development project proposed near the intersection of Routes 55 and 42. The town has approved a developer agreement reserving up to ten-million dollars in funds for the design, construction and permitting of improvements to support the development.
Beyond major development projects, the Planning Department also serves individuals in so many ways that it will seek to hire both a planner and an infrastructure plan reviewer. The Planning Department handles code-compliance, long-range and current planning through plan review, annexation, rezoning, and information dissemination. The department even engages in helping residents properly permit accessory structures, chicken coops, home occupations, food trucks, and signs.
My last question is usually “What would you like to say to our Fuquay-Varina readers?” Ms. Davison avoided our trying times and gave me an upbeat message. “Stay tuned. It’s going to get better. There is exciting residential and commercial development coming to town. We cherish the unique aspects of this town and we will work to protect what makes Fuquay-Varina special as the town continues to grow.”
The amazing information on the GIS maps is dwarfed by other offerings on the town’s website. In department after department, report after report, map after map, it is hard to escape the high quality of management we have in Fuquay-Varina and their positive vision for our future.
