Letter to the editor: Davis steps down from ARG!

Hello to active members of this group. Due to serious family health issues which has me necessarily in a full-time caregiver role, I am resigning as one of the admins for this group, effective immediately.

A few years ago, this group was launched as Wake Forest Against Reckless Growth (ARG!) and grew to over 500 members. This group, in partnership with the JHFC group, has had some positive results. In my opinion, we influenced the 2023 BOC elections, and the TOWF has the best BOC in many years. We also constantly focused on open space and this may have influenced the planning staff to document numerous mentions of open space throughout the draft UDO.

Otherwise, we, the existing residents, some of whom moved here to a quaint little town many years or decades ago, often to get out of the city, have almost always been disappointed with the results of our efforts. Absentee land barons bought forest land in the Wake County ETJ many decades ago. They, or their heirs, have held onto many acres of forest, paying little to no taxes due to vacant land designated as farm or forest. They have rights as property owners.

However, unlike existing residents who actually live here with our right to our single family homes, the Land Barons don’t want to reside here. They aren’t satisfied with building one beautiful estate for themselves to live on when they can sell the land to developers for umpteen millions. They can make more extreme profits for higher density residential developments or commercial or industrial “parks” while angering nearby residents who see all forest land around their homes disappear and feel the city closing in. They feel their quality of life and their property values are lowered to benefit the extreme greed of the land barons and developers which comes from destruction of forests most of which are outside TOWF city limits.

 Some planners, along with some town leaders, and some NCGA partisans who receive campaign support from the powerful building lobby, subscribe to a high density of residential dwelling units model for city planning. The theory is, high density residential, commercial, and industrial, delivers more taxes for less cost to the city than single family homes on 3/4 acre of land. Their job is to keep the city financial accounts positive and maybe lower taxes. Their good growth model assumes existing residents are happy to turn the formerly quaint little town into a bustling city with all the problems and expenses that entails.

Did they ever ask the existing residents if that assumption is correct or did they get their education from planners of cities with many problems? Whether or not existing residents have managed to have a positive impact on saving the Smith Creek Watershed are not yet known. Keeping developers away from drooling all over those 584 acres will be quite a challenge. As I step down from this group, it is my hope existing residents throughout the entire town will step up when needed, rather than rely only on those who currently reside in an area. I hope to continue to do my part if / when I can.

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