Sunday Forum

Letters to the editor of the Editorial Page

What kind of Dix Park?

Rest in peace

We want to give our strongest support to Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker for his support of a park at the site of Dorothea Dix Hospital. Most people don't know there is a historic cemetery of Dix patients on the property dating from the 19th century. This is hallowed ground. These patients endured barbaric treatments in early psychiatry. These poor souls deserve a peaceful rest. The cemetery would be one of the first things destroyed if developers are allowed on this land.

It is not easy to stand against the big money but Meeker is right to do it. We hope a lot of people will back the mayor on this one. We all deserve to keep and enjoy our history and heritage. There are plenty of other places for condos and shopping malls.

Jean and Ron Bryant

Raleigh

All park

The renaissance of downtown is great news for Raleigh and the region. A vibrant downtown creates a wonderful work environment, attracts visitors and provides area residents with new opportunities for entertainment, shopping and dining. And as people seek to live near downtown, denser infill development is encouraged and sprawl, traffic and negative effects on the environment are all reduced.

As Raleigh continues to encourage density in development, however, it will be even more important to provide easily accessible public open space. The 315-acre Dix Hill property is unique. We will never again have the opportunity to create a park of this size so close to downtown Raleigh.

The most current plans for the Dix campus call for maintaining part of the open space, but redeveloping significant portions of the property for office and residential uses. While developing part of Dix Hill may provide short-term financial benefits, development of the entire site as the gem of Raleigh's park system will eventually attract even more new development density all along the park periphery.

Imagine a world-class urban park, a much smaller version of New York's Central Park, for example. Imagine Dix Park being enjoyed not just by downtown's new residents but by visitors from all over Raleigh and beyond. Imagine a new wave of quality infill development as people seek to live and work in proximity to both downtown and the new park.

Let's not be shortsighted. The entire Dix Hill property needs to be preserved as a park.

George DeLoache

Raleigh

(The writer is a former chairman of the Raleigh Parks, Recreation and Greenways Advisory Board)

Misplaced development

Your Nov. 28 headline "Meeker champions park at Dix" could just have honestly read "Meeker champions 2,000-unit subdivision and 1.2 million square-feet office park at Dix." The subheadline then could read,"Park is given unbuildable floodplain and hillsides."

While the Urban Land Institute team proposed a governance structure and funding plan that have merit, they dropped the ball on their land use plan. We were promised that the ULI team would look at the big picture, but that is not what they did. They kept a narrow focus on the undeveloped state-owned property and did nothing substantially different from the previous development proposals except to make the developments bigger.

We need to take a larger view. Look at the surrounding neighborhoods. Look at the underused property on the Dix borders. A great park will increase the value of that land so development will naturally flow to it, and the financing plan the team suggested will work in the adjacent areas as well.

The narrow plan that ULI suggested turns its back on the neighborhoods along most of the privately held land suitable for development, and that is the land along Lake Wheeler Road that in the ULI plan is separated from the park by a suburban development and an office park.