{"id":1584,"date":"2026-06-02T22:08:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1584"},"modified":"2026-06-02T22:08:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:08:33","slug":"fuquay-varina-approves-park-ballfields-plan-over-residents-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1584","title":{"rendered":"Fuquay-Varina approves park ballfields plan over residents\u2019 opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"summary\">AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/news\/nation-world\/national\/article280707640.html\">Read our AI Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Fuquay-Varina residents waved protest signs like fans Monday night in a warm Town Hall board room as town leaders approved the town budget with a controversial, $10 million plan to add ballfields to Hilltop Needmore Town Park.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1582\">Can you tailgate outside Lenovo during the Stanley Cup? Info for Canes fans<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hand-made and printed signs read \u201cFV strong! Vote no,\u201d \u201cSave our nature,\u201d \u201cBe Brave Vote No\u201d and \u201cSave the Blue Trail.\u201d One drawing showed a park with a river, trees, rabbits, eagles and turtles. Residents raised the signs after 10 speakers addressed the board during public comment, while Mayor Bill Harris, town commissioners and Town Manager Adam Mitchell listened in silence.<\/p>\n<p>About 60 people of all ages gathered in the Municipal Building to oppose the Hilltop Needmore project during the town\u2019s 2026-27 budget discussion. None who spoke supported the proposal. All of the commissioners voted for the budget except Commissioner Charlie Adcock, who did not explain his vote.<\/p>\n<p>While commissioners explained their support for the budget and the park proposal Monday night, residents shook their heads, covered their faces with their hands and appeared disappointed.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents say the town is converting hard-won green space into athletic fields, while town officials say Fuquay-Varina needs more fields because youth sports participation has grown and there are long waiting lists. The town published 48 questions and answers on its website.<\/p>\n<p>The dispute had already boiled over at a previous budget meeting two weeks earlier, when Harris called a five-minute recess after trying to restore order during public comment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not just five acres,\u201d Ashley Manstedt, an admin of the Hilltop Needmore Town Park and Preserve Advocacy Group Facebook page, said before the meeting. \u201cThey\u2019re removing people\u2019s accessibility to green space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sheree Ward, another admin of the group, said opponents are not necessarily against youth sports fields, but against this location.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy issue is not the fact that they necessarily do or do not need ballfields, but the specific location,\u201d Ward said.<\/p>\n<p>Lisa Perez, who said she has lived near the Blue Trail for 11 years, said her home relies on a well and she is concerned about water quality, drainage and runoff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is our only source of water,\u201d Perez said after the vote. \u201cWe have a well, and it needs the irrigation and the rest of the blue trail to feed us water.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Safiyah Jackson, vice chair of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, said the town should have delayed the decision and released more information before moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1581\">How a Stanley Cup Final between Carolina and Vegas embodies the modern NHL era<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe environmental impacts, the economic impacts, the residential impacts, all of those things need to be studied,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n<p>Sig Hutchinson, a former chair of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, said he was directly involved in the county\u2019s acquisition of the former Crooked Creek Golf Course. Wake County bought the property for $4 million with the intent of preserving it as a natural park with trails and greenways, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had no intention when we gave Fuquay-Varina the park that it was going to be developed into ball fields,\u201d Hutchinson said.<\/p>\n<p>David Carter, retired director of Wake County Parks, Recreation and Open Space, wrote in a May 27 letter to Mitchell that Hilltop Needmore is the wrong location for ballfields because of its slopes and tree cover, nearby homes and wells.<\/p>\n<p>Asked whether the park is an appropriate site for two baseball fields and two multipurpose fields, Carter said, \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Susan Weis, communications director for the town of Fuquay-Varina, said the town has not completed traffic, lighting, stormwater, grading or well-impact studies for Hilltop Needmore. She said those studies would be conducted during the formal design and engineering process.<\/p>\n<p>Weis said town residents receive priority registration for youth sports before registration opens to nonresidents, who pay a nonresident fee. She said about 11,000 children go through Fuquay-Varina\u2019s youth sports programs annually.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout more fields, town residents will begin to be impacted by capacity cap in 2027,\u201d Weis said.<\/p>\n<p>Weis said the town has not rejected another site near Willow Springs Elementary School. She said the town has a 40-year lease with Wake County for $1 a year for Kennebec Park, where three multipurpose fields are planned.<\/p>\n<p>But for residents who filled the board room Monday night, the vote marked another step toward changing a park they said they fought for years to preserve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"summary gray\">This story was originally published <span class=\"inline-block\">June 2, 2026 at 6:30 AM<span>.<\/span><\/span><!-- --><\/p>\n<p><b>CORRECTION:<\/b> This story was updated June 2, 2026, to correct the spelling of Kennebec Park.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1580\">NC could have been a Canes owner. The state deemed it \u2018cool\u2019 but too risky<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fuquay-Varina leaders approved the 2026-27 budget including $10M for Hilltop Needmore ballfields despite resident protests over green space and water concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-todays-edition"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Fuquay-Varina approves park ballfields plan over residents\u2019 opposition - Durham Moving Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/durhammovinghub.com\/?p=1584\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fuquay-Varina approves park ballfields plan over residents\u2019 opposition - 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