Cary residents oppose commercial development on Fire Station Road

The mood at times was a little tense during the meeting where developers spoke about a handful of rezoning issues. One that had a lot of people’s attention was a piece of land near Fire Station Road. Developers are proposing a mixed use but a lot of residents are opposed to the idea.

Wednesday night’s meeting was part of a very preliminary phase of a rezoning proposal at Carpenter Fire Station Road but dozens of people living near the area are already unhappy about it.

“Suburban amenities combined with the country feel and what we don’t want is to have it overtaken by very aggressive commercial development,” said resident Mary Lee

The developers at the meeting presented a map to the crowd to give them an overhead visual of the 21 acres of land they’re considering for use. The idea is to change the area from a space designated for medium density residential use and rezone it for commercial mixed use.

“I’ve seen commercial areas develop in many different place that I’ve lived and they have a tendency to attract crime,” said resident Jeff Meyer.

Developers said that even though they could, they don’t have plans for residential development on that piece of land.

They tried to reassure the crowd that they’ve taken the needs of the area into consideration, although right now plans are not set for the specific businesses that will go there.

Some residents said that they believe they can come to some middle ground, but tons of retail is not the answer.

“People just don’t want all that development,” said Lee. ”We’re all happy to drive down the road to Target down there. We don’t want it in our backyard.”