Greenways and Greenbacks in North Carolina

Greenways and Greenbacks: The Impact of the Catawba Regional Trail on Property Values in Charlotte, North Carolina
by HARRISON S. CAMPBELL, JR.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

DARLA K. MUNROE
Ohio State University
Abstract

Planners and policy makers are increasingly aware that local amenities can play an important role in community and regional development and greenways represent one such amenity that can be locally developed. As planning initiatives compete for scarce resources it becomes vital that decision makers have ex ante information about the impact of policy options. This paper provides empirical estimates of changes in land value that should be expected if a planned greenway, the Catawba Regional Trail, is developed in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Passing through economically modest neighborhoods, the trail holds potential to increase equity in the distribution of open space though the aggregate impact on property values is limited by neighborhood characteristics. Using a hedonic land value model, we estimate the real estate premium associated with the trail and find that most of the impact to land values will be captured within 1000 ft of the planned greenway.
key words: Greenway, amenity valuation, North Carolina

Read entire study (220k pdf): Greenways and Greenbacks: The Impact of the Catawba Regional Trail on Property Values in Charlotte, North Carolina

Downtown vitality sapped by closed decision-making

Downtown Lexington is in the midst of a major comeback by just about any measure you can make.

We have produced more new housing downtown in the last few years than in many preceding decades. The Lexington Center-Rupp Arena Complex has been dramatically improved. The fine building stock of our historic urban neighborhoods has enjoyed a big boost in investment and a shift back to home ownership. Major urban stakeholders — schools, universities, churches and hospitals — have made major investments in staying downtown. It is a place full of life, with concerts, parades, footraces, sidewalk cafes and children playing in fountains.

Success has a thousand parents and probably as many people deserve thanks for downtown Lexington’s turnaround.

A dense downtown is an efficient economic engine for the whole state that can create a world-class quality of life while avoiding the negative affects of sprawl. This, in turn, will attract and retain the young talent needed to maintain and increase our economic vitality.

So how do we build on this successful pattern? How do we make Lexington competitive with an Austin, Portland, Boulder, Madison or Charleston? As Vice Mayor Jim Gray says, how do we raise the standards of our B-minus downtown to match our A-plus landscape?

There are no shortcuts. It takes planning, coordination and cooperation among all downtown public and private organizations and stakeholders — and significant public investment. This level of open and transparent team play can happen only with an inclusive government that welcomes civic engagement.

That engagement has happened recently with the creation of a Downtown Masterplan and a Newtown Extension area plan. An urban streetscape plan is in the works, and a citywide 2040 visioning process is under way.

But these great starts are undermined by a number of big urban projects that have been conceived behind closed doors, then unveiled as “done deals.”

These include the redesign of Bluegrass Aspendale and Ann Street; the new Rupp Arena proposal; the deal involving Eastern State Hospital, Bluegrass Community and Technical College and the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream Research Campus; and, now, the CentrePointe development.

Each one of these big projects has merit and is potentially beneficial to our city, but that is beside the point. They all were either specifically excluded from the Downtown Master Plan (for now obvious reasons) or they disregarded its recommendations. Public input has been minimal at best or came after the fact as a means of damage control.

Each time a big idea is foisted on the community without prior public input, it undermines the civic engagement and buy-in necessary to make downtown succeed.

We can’t have it both ways. If civic volunteers feel as if our most important projects are not open for discourse, they will lose faith in the process. Downtown needs significant public funding to spur the private investment necessary to grow our economy. With public investment (tax incentives included) comes real public oversight.

Downtown needs a permanent public-private oversight board to guide the area’s development. We will never take our city from good to great without a coherent and transparent process to make decisions large and small about downtown. Our economic future depends upon it.

Homebuyers Want Trails

In a survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders in 2002, homebuyers were asked to rank their preferences in buying a house. When asked about the importance of 18 community amenities, the highest ranking features were (with percent ranking as important or very important): highway access, 44 percent; jogging/bike trails, 36 percent; sidewalks, 28 percent; parks, 26 percent; playgrounds, 21 percent, and shops within walking area, 19 percent.

A Brief History of DISTILLERIES along Town Branch

Distilling was a significant Lexington industry in the 19th century and continued to impact Lexington into the 20th century. In the Old Frankfort Pike area, distilleries operated at three different sites. The Pepper Distillery may be the one to focus on because one of its owners, James E. Pepper, was an important business and social figure in Lexington. He was the third generation of his family engaged in distilling in Kentucky. James E. Pepper managed a successful stable of thoroughbreds and he owned the land where the Meadowthorpe subdivision is located. The drink called the “Old Fashioned” was supposedly created for him in Louisville.

His grandfather, Elijah Culpepper, came from Culpepper County, Virginia to Kentucky when it was still a county of Virginia. Legend has it that some time around 1776, Elijah Culpepper settled at what came to be known as the “Old Pepper Spring” near Lexington on the Frankfort Pike. There he supposedly built a log cabin distillery about 1780. The story goes that Elijah Culpepper, finding his name “too long and too troublesome to write,” dropped the “Cul” and became Elijah Pepper.

Elijah Pepper’s son, Oscar Pepper, operated several distilleries in Kentucky including the current Labrot and Graham’s Old Oscar Pepper Distillery and another in Versailles. He hired James C. Crow as his master distiller. James Crow is known for using his knowledge of biochemistry to introduce scientific principles into the distilling process. Together the two men brought fame to the Old Crow and Old Pepper brands. Their whiskey became a big hit with men such as Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, John Calhoun, Ulysess S. Grant, William Henry Harrison, and Daniel Webster. Labrot and Graham’s Old Oscar Pepper Distillery is named for Oscar Pepper.

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Early Model Steamboat Tested on the Town Fork of Elkhorn Creek, Lexington, Kentucky

In 1793, Edward West, a craftsman and inventor, successfully demonstrated a model steamboat on Town Fork before a large crowd. The Town Fork was dammed up near the Lexington and Frankfort freight depot to allow for the demonstration. It was reported that the boat swiftly moved through the water.

In an April 29, 1816, editorial in the Kentucky Gazette, a steamboat based on a plan by Edward West, successfully travelled against the current of the Kentucky River. The article mentions that after this trial the steamboat will travel down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The editor who wrote that article claims that because of West’s invention, “a hundred years from now, the little stream called the ‘Town Fork of Elkhorn’ will have become classic.

West received a patent in July 1802 for his steamboat invention. Robert Fulton’s better-known work with a larger model was done in 1803. West’s model for the steamboat was destroyed when the British burned Washington D.C. in 1814. Another model of the steamboat was kept in the museum at the lunatic asylum.

Kleber, John E. (ed.). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. 1992.
Ranck, George, W. History of Lexington, Kentucky. 1872