Town commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday in favor of a mixed-use development on 83 acres. The development will include townhomes, office space and commercial property.
Many who live in the area oppose the plan because they said moved to
Holly Springs
to get away from commercial development.
Holly Springs is the perfect example of how Mayberry is truly disappearing in North Carolina. In 1990, fewer than 1,000 residents lived in town; now there are more than 13,000. Some residents fear the town is trading paradise for parking lots.
Some residents of Holly Springs neighborhoods say the town's small-town feel could be a thing of the past if the town leaders and developers have their way.
"We expected development. We're not trying to stop development, but we expected controlled development," neighbor John Powell said.
Mayor Dick Sears said the town listened to input from the community and made many changes to the plan.
"It's impossible to make anybody happy when you develop almost anything," he said. "It's going to be developed. Now the question is how can we make a consensus issue out of this as we can?"
Most of all, neighbors are concerned about quality of life.
"I'm not ashamed to say I don't want it in my back yard," resident Robert Forcum said. "We didn't move here for this. We moved here to get away from the overcommercial development."
"Our house purchase is the most major purchase we're going to make in our lifetime and to find out it's going to go from a large lot like ours to having a parking lot adjoining our property with more parking spaces than the Food Lion shopping center was disturbing," resident Sherri Powell said.
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