Fuquay-Varina approves park ballfields plan over residents’ opposition
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- Fuquay-Varina approved a budget that includes a $10 million ballfields plan
- About 60 people gathered in Town Hall to oppose the ballfields project.
- Town said traffic, lighting, stormwater and well studies have not been completed.
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.
Hand-made and printed signs read “FV strong! Vote no,” “Save our nature,” “Be Brave Vote No,” and “Save the Blue Trail.” 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.
About 60 people of all ages gathered in the Municipal Building to oppose the Hilltop Needmore project during the town’s 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.
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.
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.
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.
“This is not just five acres,” Ashley Manstedt, an admin of the Hilltop Needmore Town Park and Preserve Advocacy Group Facebook page, said before the meeting. “They’re removing people’s accessibility to green space.”
Sheree Ward, another admin of the group, said opponents are not necessarily against youth sports fields, but against this location.
“My issue is not the fact that they necessarily do or do not need ballfields, but the specific location,” Ward said.
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.
“This is our only source of water,” Perez said after the vote. “We have a well, and it needs the irrigation and the rest of the blue trail to feed us water.”
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.
“The environmental impacts, the economic impacts, the residential impacts, all of those things need to be studied,” Jackson said.
Sig Hutchinson, a former chair of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, said he was directly involved in the county’s 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.
“We had no intention when we gave Fuquay-Varina the park that it was going to be developed into ball fields,” Hutchinson said.
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.
Asked whether the park is an appropriate site for two baseball fields and two multipurpose fields, Carter said, “Absolutely not.”
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.
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’s youth sports programs annually.
“Without more fields, town residents will begin to be impacted by capacity cap in 2027,” Weis said.
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 what she called Kenny Beck Park, where three multipurpose fields are planned.
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.