Many thanks to Asheville Bee City USA for holding part of their Pollination Celebration on Hominy Creek Greenway!
Category: Media Coverage
News describing or linking to media coverage of the greenway or topics related to the greenway development.
Mountain XPress Credits Brotherhug
From the Mountain Xpress, 11/5/2013
Walk any day along the Hominy Creek Greenway (not to be confused with Hominy Creek River Park) and you’ll pass scores of walkers, nature lovers, runners and families. To me, this represents quite an achievement. For years, West Asheville residents have walked and jogged the narrow path cleared by the Metropolitan Sewerage District between Sand Hill Road and Shelburne Road beside Hominy Creek, but the property only recently entered the public domain.
The lion’s share of the credit belongs to Doug “Brotherhug” Barlow, who led the effort to protect the space after moving here from Atlanta in 2006. “It’s a magical place,” he says. “The first time I saw the land, I immediately felt it needed to be public space.”
Greenway Featured in Video
Hominy Creek Greenway is prominently featured in the first minute of this video produced by Connect Buncombe, a local greenway advocacy group.
Greenways Support Schools & Services
Investing in greenways supports our schools and social services, as tax dollars should. The Dr. John Wilson Community Garden is just a small example of how greenways across Buncombe County can support these essential elements in our neighborhoods. The Town of Black Mountain established the Garden Greenway in 2011 with grant funding from multiple sources, public and private.
The Garden Greenway provides a direct link to schools and social services by:
Providing affordable access to more than 70 families to grow vegetables for themselves
Donating 4,000 pounds of fresh produce to families in need
Supporting health and nutrition education for every first and fourth grader in Black Mountain through field trips.
Did you know you can grow eight months of food for about $35? Seeds can be purchased with food stamps and our gardeners are able to grow eight months of food for the cost to rent a garden plot, $35. A number of our gardeners walk or bike to the garden to tend their plots.
I know in one instance, biking is her only form of transportation. There are no bike lanes or sidewalks that currently link the garden to downtown. Greenways connect the Dr. John Wilson Community Garden to downtown Black Mountain.
Childhood obesity and diabetes are increasing at incredible rates. I cannot think of a more direct social service to target these two epidemics among our school children than greenways and gardens. The Community Garden annually hosts every Black Mountain public school first and fourth grader on a field trip, where they learn about how fruits and vegetables are grown and how healthy food can keep their bodies healthy. With the Garden Greenway now available, these students include a walk on the greenway as part of their field trip, learning about exercise and wellness.
The greenway has increased exposure to the Community Garden, which has increased our access to funding. Last year we received a $3,000 grant to fund the installation of an orchard on a site opened up by the construction of the greenway. Planting fruit and nut trees increase our ability to provide access to fresh produce in our community.
As the mother of three children, the greenway means a lot to me. While I work, my children bike, ride scooters, draw with chalk and play games, some days long after the sun has gone down and the bats have come out. Before the greenway, dragging my children to work was a chore. Now they often want to go, even when I don’t need to.
Because our house is near the Garden Greenway, we don’t even need to use the car to go to work or play. For me, all of these things make calling Black Mountain home that much sweeter.
Black Mountain News, Jul. 10, 2012
Written by Diana Schmitt McCall, Guest Columnist
Greenway Plan Faces Hurdles
The path ahead: County greenways plan faces major hurdles
Read the full article at MountainX.com
After years of planning and public meetings, Buncombe County is poised to release a comprehensive proposal for an extensive greenway system linking towns, parks, schools and other key sites.
Bolstered by recent successes in the city of Asheville, and by growing support for transportation alternatives, advocates are eager for the plan to be released (it’s due out next month). Black Mountain, Woodfin and Weaverville are also developing greenways.
But with the economy still reeling, even supporters concede that major funding and organizational hurdles lie ahead. Meanwhile, many opponents are adamant that limited tax revenues should fund other priorities.
Both sides cast their arguments in terms of economic development. And with the debate unfolding in the midst of a heated election year, it’s unclear how much support the greenways plan will ultimately find on the new, expanded Buncombe County Board of Commissioners come December.
Asheville Citizen-Times Report
From the Asheville Citizen-Times 2/14/11
Just across Sand Hill Road, a narrow, wooded stretch of property running along Hominy Creek offered him a scenic trek to Carrier Park, the city’s most popular recreation spot.
“I walked down here, and I saw that beautiful creek and the woods and thought this needs to be a greenway,” Barlow said.
Taking a cue from land preservation he had done in Atlanta, the 64-year-old Barlow and his neighbors tried to convince government officials and others to buy the 12 acres from private owners
With a $300,000 price tag, the effort failed to win City Council approval in 2007. But thanks to years of work by volunteers and a drop in property values, Asheville has bought the land $139,000.
Greenway Land Links Neighborhoods to Carrier Park
Asheville Citizen-Times, Feb. 14, 2011
Asheville has 4.5 miles of developed greenways and is working toward a 15-mile system.
Size: 12 acres
Possible length of greenway: 2/3 of a mile
Connections: To the north, Sand Hill Road at the corner of Narbeth Road. To the south, the intersection of Hominy Creek and Shelburne Roads.
ASHEVILLE — For an urban neighborhood, Doug Barlow found a rare thing when he moved to his West Asheville home four years ago.
Written by Joel Burgess
Just across Sand Hill Road, a narrow, wooded stretch of property running along Hominy Creek offered him a scenic trek to Carrier Park, the city’s most popular recreation spot.
“I walked down here, and I saw that beautiful creek and the woods and thought this needs to be a greenway,” Barlow said.
Taking a cue from land preservation he had done in Atlanta, the 64-year-old Barlow and his neighbors tried to convince government officials and others to buy the 12 acres from private owners
With a $300,000 price tag, the effort failed to win City Council approval in 2007. But thanks to years of work by volunteers and a drop in property values, Asheville has bought the land $139,000.
The move preserves a historic and unusual piece of property, supporters say, and serves as another link for the area’s growing greenway system.
City and Buncombe County taxpayers each paid $55,756. Private donors gave $27,878. Barlow himself chipped in $500, plus around $2,000 that wasn’t counted, he said, for the original survey and other costs over the four years.
A major fear until recently was that someone interested in developing the land would outbid the city, Barlow said.
“I’ve been holding my breath for so long on this thing,” he said.
Those involved with the property soon learned its historic nature. Stone ruins show the spot of a dam built by Edwin Carrier, for whom the park is named.
An investor from Pennsylvania, Carrier dammed the creek to provide power to his resort at Sulphur Springs near what is now Malvern Hills.
It also powered a street car that went to a racetrack near the site of the current park and into the city.
The dam eventually failed and Carrier went bankrupt. The land, largely in floodplain, went to other owners. A sewer line was built along it, and over the years, a few walkers and cyclists turned it into a regular route.
Connection
Residents cited greenways in a city survey as their biggest priority when it comes to parks and recreation. But land suitable for the linear parks can be hard to come by.
The Hominy Creek land holds added value in that it provides an easily traveled connection from central West Asheville to other greenways.
From Haywood Road, walkers and cyclists can go down Sand Hill, turn into the property and after 2/3 of a mile come out at Hominy Creek Road.
The road ends at Hominy Creek Park and connects to the existing Hominy Creek Greenway that runs to Carrier Park.
The greenway from Carrier goes on to the French Broad River Park and Dog Park. Crossing the French Broad River from the park is a bike lane that runs along Lyman Street to the River Arts District.
Other routes are often busy with cars or have steep hills, said Charlie Clogston, treasurer for the nonprofit Blue Ridge Bicycle Club
“This is a good place for families to ride away from cars,” Clogston said.
The club has made health a major focus and wants to encourage cycling among children, especially those at risk of obesity.
For that reason, the Buncombe-based group was the lead agency in raising private funds and got a deed restriction for the property specifying that it should always be a public park.
It will likely be years until the city will be able to pay for paving and other improvements, meanwhile people will likely continue to blaze their own path, said Marc Hunt, chairman of the Asheville Greenway Commission
As for the bigger picture, Hunt said the Hominy Creek property could eventually link a greenway system to the Buncombe County Sports Park in Candler and on into Enka.
“It could be a pretty remarkable connection,” he said.
Environmental learning
Along with being a corridor for commuters and others, the property is an unusual piece of forest in the city, Barlow said.
Barlow said he hopes schools will take advantage of its proximity to teach students about plants and animals.
Along with a wide range of trees — including poplars, locusts and black walnuts, people have spotted pileated woodpeckers, hawks, foxes and deer.
Barlow said he’s run across turkeys and believes there’s a coyote den nearby.
“I’ve seen all sorts of critters down there,” he said.