Horseshoe won't get community center

The Raleigh City Council approves a community center at Durant Nature Park but only minimal amenities at Horseshoe Farm Park

RALEIGH -- Two years into efforts to shape Horseshoe Farm Park, the City Council stepped back from any grand visions for the site in northeast Raleigh.

All that's clear is that a $9 million community center will not be built at the park. Instead, the council Tuesday unanimously decided to put a 40,000-square-foot center on 15 acres next to Durant Nature Park.

Construction could finish on the Durant site, pending plan approval of the council, within a year, said Richard Lee with Arcadis, the land design group that prepared preliminary plans for the site. (See map, page 6B)

The council punted on exactly what will go in Horseshoe, a 146-acre park that hugs a bend in the Neuse River.

Environmental activists and neighbors say it is a rare site that must be protected from intense development. That stance has put them in a standoff with city park planners, who say Horseshoe is crucial to meeting the recreational needs of northeastern Raleigh.

Two large-scale plans -- one with a park, gym and athletic courts, the other with playing fields and an environmental education center -- fell by the wayside.

Instead, the council, urged by member Jessie Taliaferro, unanimously approved a barebones plan:

* A canoe and kayak launch to the Neuse River.

* Improvements to an earthen dam and access road.

* A river walk and paths.

* Playgrounds, picnic facilities and rest rooms.

* A parking lot.

For neighborhood and environmental advocates, Tuesday's truce was tenuous. A committee of park neighbors had worked out a plan for a low-density park.

The city's Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board overruled the planning committee, however. City park planners argued that a community center was badly needed in that part of town.

Jamie Ramsey, who has helped mobilize opposition to ball fields and gyms on the site, said the lack of a commitment to the original plan was hardly an endorsement of a low-density park: "What [the council has] done is left the future of Horseshoe Farm up in the air."

Under the council's approval, any change to the park would come under the city's park master plan system, making it possible for tennis courts or a gym to be considered in the future, said David Shouse, a park planner.

For now, development will be limited to the $1 million the city has set aside for Horseshoe from the park bonds approved in 2000.