I first heard about Glennstone when Dean Kanipe called me up one day to report that a big new development was going in off Glenn Road east of town. It sounded like the beginning of the end for the rural character of Ellerbe’s lower valley. With a sense of dread, I went down to the city/county planning office to look at the site plan for the development, and to my surprise found a relatively compact development surrounded by a large expanse of greenspace was planned. The developer, Craig Morrison, had decided to cluster the houses on smaller lots, borrowing “density credits” from the surrounding acreage. Of some 160 acres, only 45 would be developed.
I gave the developer a call to find out what plans he had for the 100+ acres that were designated as greenspace, and ventured the idea of a nature preserve. He was open to the idea. The next step was to explore the property and do a plant inventory. In May, 2002, Dean and I walked some of the property with botanists Milo Pyne and Liz Pullman. We found a rich variety of wildflowers and native grasses, and put together a preliminary plant list.
In June, the ECWA board expressed support for a Glennstone Nature Preserve, and a formal letter proposing the Preserve was sent to Craig, outlining an arrangement in which ECWA would provide and maintain trails for the residents, and likely manage portions of the property for shrub/grassland habitat.
In July, a draft Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was drawn up and discussed by board members. A letter was sent to Craig in August, listing and describing the benefits of creating an ECWA-managed preserve. These included professionally managed trails and landscape, ECWA’s access to community volunteer resources, ECWA’s experience in beautifying stormwater detention installations, and potential tax benefits for the developer. I also outlined how Glennstone would fit into a string of preserves ECWA hopes to create along the creek.
Negotiations were going well until late August, when news came that a reevaluation had begun of the critical areas around Falls Lake (started three or so years previously, then left to idle for awhile). Development around Falls Lake is controlled through designation of a half-mile wide critical area in which all development must be very low density. Durham city/county then added an additional half mile of critical area with a similar restriction on dense development. Some landowners in the lower valley believed the survey on which those critical areas were based was inaccurate, and petitioned for a new survey. Though the state refused to change its critical area, the city/county felt obligated to resurvey. This was done, leading to a pulling back in October, 2002 of the city/county’s critical area in some places, including Glennstone.
This meant that Craig suddenly had more density to work with, meaning he could redesign his development to build more houses. Thus began a period of deep foreboding about our prospects. I contacted county commissioners Ellen Reckhow and Becky Heron about this, and discussed the matter with greenspace planner Jane Korest, to see if there was any way to encourage Craig to minimize expansion into the greenspace. Though he said that any expansion would be minimal, it wasn’t until June, 2003 when I finally got to see a siteplan down at the planning office, and found to my great relief that the area planned for a nature preserve had remained intact. At that point, negotiations on the MOA resumed, leading us to this point.
Over most of the past year and a half of negotiations, I was unsure whether Craig was serious about creating the preserve, and whether it was just a matter of expediency on his part. Recently, though, I’ve come to the conclusion that he genuinely cares about wildlife. For instance, he says he could have built an additional 50 units, but decided not to do so. He also owns a farm, which he manages for wildlife, using prescribed burns to improve habitat for quail and other species. He would like to see us use prescribed fire at Glennstone, but thinks there may be restrictions on how close to house burns can be conducted. Craig is also very interested in improving the appearance of stormwater detention installations, at Glennstone and at his other developments.
The Glennstone Nature Preserve is located to the north and west of the Glennstone housing development. Comprising 83 acres, its neighbors include the Army Corps of Engineers (to the north along Ellerbe Creek), William Lucus (husband of State Senator Jeanne Lucus), Carl Veasey (related to the Veaseys who lived in the Glenn-Veasey house), and the Glenn Cemetary (moved from nearby the Glenn-Veasey House when the landfill was built). Private residences bordering the proposed preserve area are 43 houses at Glennstone and 7 houses on the south boundary.
A sewer line right of way extends westward from the property to the old city landfill. This is one potential route for a city trail that could run along the northwest edge of the preserve connecting the preserve to the city to the west and the Mountains To Sea Trail running along Falls Lake to the east.
Three trail access points have been cleared. We’ll need to know if any other access points exist, for instance off of Davie Road to the west.
If a public trail is built along the northwestern edge of the preserve, the developer is not against the public accessing the preserve property from that side. Access from the Glennstone side, however, would be limited to Glennstone residents, ECWA staff and volunteers, and participants in ECWA field trips.
Some trails already exist, in the form of the sewer right of way and an old road. The power line right of way is kept free of trees, though no pathway is maintained there.
Most or all of the proposed preserve was logged some years ago. The plant survey showed there to be a rich variety of native wildflowers and grasses persisting in areas that have yet to become dominated by tree saplings. Red-headed woodpeckers inhabit one area with lots of snags. A heron rookery is located a short walk west of the preserve area.
Though some invasive plants have become established along the right of ways, they are not at this time dominant in the preserve. Species that pose the greatest threat to the goal of a diverse shrub/grassland habitat are the exotic Lespedezas and aggressive natives like sweet gum and groundsel-tree (Baccharus).