PLEASE READ… The City of Fayetteville’s Cape Fear River Plan. Is it an opportunity for OUR COMMUNITY, or gentrification at it’s finest?
The Cape Fear River Plan has been around for almost two decades and it provides recommendations on how to improve the quality of life, strengthen the area economically, support community health, and reverse negative trends in the area covered by the Plan. The Plan provides direction and guidance to the City of Fayetteville and the community on future development, community programs, and infrastructure improvements that are tailored to the specific needs of the community.
The city’s plan is to transform Downtown Fayetteville and the Eastern part of the city into a a river front oasis similar to Wilmington , but what does this mean for the local residents of Deep Creek Road? The residents of this tight knit community have been calling the banks of the Cape Fear River home for a long time, and the land has been passed down from generation to generation , which makes me wonder what will happen to our community under this plan? Are they trying to invest in us or take our land ? I believe that we can use this opportunity to work with our local leadership to make this plan become a reality and hopefully hold onto the land that our ancestors work so hard for.
Our organization is focused on community and economic development, and we want to make sure that the residents are being represented by a strong voice with their best interest at hand. . The land next to river wasn’t always as valuable as it is today, it was once considered worthless “Floodlands” to locals, but it was just right for the black sharecroppers looking for something of their own, and somewhere to call home. Over a century later, things seem to have changed, and Fayetteville has gone through a transition over the years, expanding more towards the North and Western parts of the City. For the longest, people from across the river, have felt forgotten, and with a limited amount of land available for future development within the city limits, they finally see what our ancestors saw over a century ago, but is it a good thing or a bad thing for us?
THE CAPE FEAR RIVER PLAN also included plans for DEEP CREEK RD, OLD CAMPBELL and GROVE VIEW TERRACE. CREEK 4 KIDS is dedicated to working with the public and private sector to create opportunities for our people.
Although these are drafts from 2016, the city continues to make progress with their efforts. If you look at this map it shows what the future of East Fayetteville might look like, and we can all agree that it’s nice, but I believe that WE MUST SPEAK UP FOR OUR COMMUNITY, and we must take our own destiny into our own hands.
SOURCE: “The Cape Fear River Plan”. City of Fayetteville. Retrieved from https://www.fayettevillenc.gov/home/showdocument?id=5024 on 10 August 2020
