Today arguably the Town of Davidson’s most famous park, BEATY PARK has a special relationship with the community: a legacy and impact that extends far beyond simply being located next to and including open space land donated by the developer of Hobbs Hill Neighborhood, or being the first and only Town (publicly) owned, natural open space/community park in the Town’s 180+ year history that was purchased independently and protected by a permanent conservation easement in all of Davidson!
VISION:
Beaty Park has a uniquely complicated legacy with several chapters in the more recent history of Davidson. In 1980, Town Parks & Recreation staff, elected officials and other community advocates first publicly broached the concept of their vision to identify natural open space in the greater historic downtown Davidson area to acquire and conserve for a “future Park.” This was notable because at that time, much of that area outside the historic downtown Main Street district remained largely undeveloped – but even then, those visionary community members realized the concept of land conservation and the urgency of “acquiring land now, while it is still available.”
By 1981, the Town proceeded to identify and solicit six (6) different private landowners scattered around the East and West sides of downtown Davidson. All but one of those landowners rebuffed the Town and indicated no interest in selling their land for a community Park. Ms. Venie Clontz and her late husband Ralph had acquired a fairly significant parcel of land (approximately 50 acres) in the Northern end of downtown Davidson during the mid-century, land that historically dating back to the 18th century had been owned by key figures including the Armour family. It was prime property for future development, given it bordered Lake Davidson (Norman), North Main Street and was located just blocks from Davidson College and downtown Davidson. But Ms. Clontz and her son Ralph Clontz, Jr. were the only property owners to respond to the Town and indicate an interest in selling their land for a future public Park.
THE SALE AND DONATION OF PARK LAND:
By 1985, after several years of further delays by the Town following initial offers and agreement in principal, Ms. Clontz and the Town of Davidson, under the administration of Mayor Russell Knox, finally contracted for the sale of the Eastern half of her family’s land (which had been bisected since its original acquisition by Beaty Street) to the Town for the future Park. This land conservation transaction remains historically significant because based on extensive public records research, it represents the first (and only) land parcel EVER purchased autonomously by the Town of Davidson specifically for open space/Park conservation purposes dating back to the Town’s founding in 1837! Later in 1991, developer Michael Johnson acquired lands historically owned by the Hobbs and Armour families adjacent to “Beaty Park” and began development with partner David Mayfield in 1993 of the “19 Hobbs Hill” neighborhood. In 1995, they planned to complete Hobbs Hill with a “phase 2” comprised of 5 additional lots; as a condition for Town approval, Johnson and Mayfield agreed to donate land that ultimately comprised approx. 1.5 acres of their private property to the Town expressly as open space (today known as the “Johnson parcel”), on behalf of Hobbs Hill Neighborhood, which they further stated was agreed to with the Town in order to serve as a buffer between Hobbs Hill and Beaty Street and be included with the Clontz property as part of the future town park.
DEVELOPER SPECIAL INTERESTS, RFPs & COLLUSION:
Unfortunately, over the course of the next 30 years and thru numerous changes in elected/hired Town officials, that conservation vision, agreements with the property owners and public records on the Clontz and Johnson land acquisitions for the Park were buried in town files and faded memories. Town officials in the 1980’s and 1990’s also failed to properly memorialize the defined purposes of the Clontz and Johnson land purchase and donation in legal documents filed on the parcels at the time of acquisition or thereafter as well. And as development pressures and high demand for property in Davidson escalated, development industry-skewed persons even got elected to the Town Board. The “Beaty Park” property sat completely ignored for years (other than some NCDENR-ordered repairs to the Beaty Pond/dam) while also suffering thru various Town officials’ attempts to induce development rather than fulfill the Park in its intended form; that included a “small area plan” in 1996, the first ever for the Town not coincidentally and a resulting residential development “request-for-proposal” (RFP) in 1996 that citizens protested and the Town eventually abandoned, and later a 2009 Town staff-led study targeting the property for “Eco-Industrial” development that was later not published for public knowledge. Thru all of those efforts, public records show that citizen public input on various Town studies/plans [including the most recent “Station Area Plan” (2012) and “Parks & Rec Master Plan” (2014)] consistently reiterated that the collective Clontz, Johnson and other minor adjoining land acquisitions by the Town were public property whose purpose was a community Park, with any notion for “development” to be for “public purposes” limited to the property’s NE corner (which was at the North entrance to Town of Davidson and Mecklenburg County).
A key event linked to the Town’s aggressive bias and shift to targeting high-density development in the historic Westside area of Town occurred in 2015 when together with other mass zoning/ordinance changes, Town officials misleadingly rezoned the entire park property (and adjacent land) to permit various high-density development uses – including commercial, retail and hotel, despite questions/concerns raised by area residents. These events initiated discreet inquiries by a resident of Hobbs Hill in late 2014 and 2015 investigating the status of the Park and specifically why it was being completely ignored by the Town while being rezoned – efforts which later revealed mounting evidence of dubious and undisclosed motives by Town officials regarding the public property.
Specifically, it was discovered that there was no intention to conserve the land as a Parks & Rec asset and complete it as a public Park, but instead Town officials were actively shopping the property on a list of available public and private land parcels with developers seeking land to develop in Davidson; a cogent explanation and motive confirming the Hobbs Hill resident’s original thesis back in 2014/2015 that there was a undisclosed reason why the Town had purposely ignored the property over past 20 years, refused to recognize it as public park property and added no amenities or improvements.
Worse, that demonstrated a tacit agenda that public records later proved was neither specifically ever disclosed to the public at large thru any Town studies/plans, nor shared with citizens who had met with the Town Manager and Planning Director in late 2014 specifically to question the proposed rezoning. Citizen advocates had to research and discover independently that the former Town administration and Planning Department’s ideology was simply that the sole way a Park would be created on the property was via high-density, mixed-use development and whatever open space might be required by ordinance!Shortly following that April 2015 Board approval of rezoning the park/nearby property, a local church then inquired about its interest in purchasing 5 acres at the NE corner of property for its new home AND helping work with the Town to realize the long-planned Park on balance of the property. Instead, in the months that followed Town officials decided to use that solicitation as a basis to sell/develop the property. In August 2016, while erroneously misrepresenting and failing to disclose key portions of that church’s good faith solicitation or any records history on the property, Town officials announced the issuance of a new “Beaty RFP” for the sale of the entire public Park property (including requiring high-density development with commercial/retail) without any public input or approval. In that RFP scenario, the alleged “park” in fact would simply be the several acres of the property comprising the pond and other watershed ordinance-restricted land that was commercially impractical for development!
A CITIZEN UPRISING TO “SAVE THE PARK… AND TOWN”:
In response to that RFP, Hobbs Hill residents organized under “Hobbs Hill Neighborhood Alliance” in September 2016 and initiated formal dialogue with Town officials regarding the RFP, Town officials’ intent and numerous questions/concerns about the status and history of the Park. Hobbs Hill began notifying other citizens and local neighborhoods including the historic “North Main” (NoMa) neighborhood of concerns when it became plainly evident by January 2017 that the entire RFP process was rife with flaws including collusion with one developer, and Town officials then arbitrarily selected that proposal with no intent of facilitating any public input or approval on the disposition of this legacy public park property. By then the issues had rapidly escalated far beyond anything local residents of Hobbs Hill, NoMa or any other area neighborhoods could effectively resolve themselves, so several residents of Hobbs Hill formed the Facebook group “Save West Davidson’s Tree Canopy” in February 2017 to help raise awareness of the concerns.
Citizen response to the group – specifically broad support for the Park and rebuke for the Town’s flawed process and conduct not just regarding “Beaty Park” but numerous other Town matters, was both immediate and overwhelming. Citizen support to “save the Park” and demand change in Town Hall was rapidly expanding across not only Davidson, but the entire Lake Norman and North Mecklenburg County region – even attracting the attention of various other prominent Town, County and State elected officials and media. Meanwhile Town officials, the private developer and their peers/stakeholders vigorously criticized citizens and discounted concerns, with particularly harsh attacks on Hobbs Hill residents; rather than accurately acknowledge that local residents (including but not limited to Hobbs Hill and NoMa) logically had been the ones most knowledgeable about the Park and thus first ones to correctly identify a litany of errors and discrepancies in public process related to the property and the RFP, they instead focused on attacking citizens and mischaracterizing local residents’ concerns as those of a disgruntled “NIMBY” (not-in-my-back-yard) minority.
2017 also happened to be an election year for the Town of Davidson, so as months of sustained public protest against the sale/development of the Park and numerous other disputes over Town actions continued, the group grew to 2,000+ members and legally organized into “Save Davidson” – a 501c4 registered non-profit citizen advocacy group whose stated mission is “to preserve Davidson’s small-town quality of life by educating and engaging citizens in Town governance, community advocacy, and activism.”
Save Davidson’s entirely volunteer group created and hosted numerous innovative public engagement, education, voter registration and Mayoral/Commissioner candidate forums and fund raising events. Of the two (2) new Mayoral candidates and nine (9) new Commissioner candidates, in various forms ALL opposed the RFP and proposed sale/development of Beaty Park noting the flawed process, lack of public input and overwhelming citizen support to honor the original Park promise.
Facing overwhelming public protest and rebuke, the litany of flaws with the RFP process and extensive public record evidence proving Town officials had failed to disclose numerous facts/records related to the property’s Park intent/history, in August 2018 they finally abandoned their attempts to execute a contract with their chosen developer for the sale of the property – thus temporarily “saving the Park” but attributed that to issues reaching mutual agreement on the contract (rather than citizen protests about errors/misdeeds), and purposely stated that others uses/future development remained a possibility. But cumulative and pervasive damage had been done that fundamentally shook citizens’ trust in Town Hall and the leadership of Davidson, as well as cost the Town and citizens dearly.
Three months later in November 2017, led by Save Davidson and an extensive public advocacy and engagement campaign, the voters of Town of Davidson turned out in historic numbers and ousted the long-time Mayor and Board (except for the sole commissioner who had voted against sale of the Park and most other disputed Town actions) responsible for the Beaty RFP and a series of other highly controversial decisions across Town and region. Citizens had spoken clearly thru our democracy in demonstrating an overwhelming mandate for substantive changes in how Town Hall of Davidson behaved and conducted the business of its citizens.
BEATY PARK – 4 DECADES IN THE MAKING:
Following that historic 2017 election and citizen mandate for sweeping changes in Town Hall policy and core values, new Mayor Rusty Knox (notably the son of Mayor Russell Knox, who had signed the Town’s original contract to purchase the park property from Ms. Venie Clontz) and the new Board of Commissioners (David Sitton, Matthew Fort, Autumn Michael, Jane Campbell and Jim Fuller – the sole incumbent candidate opposing the Park’s sale/development) promptly appointed a diverse citizen-led “Park at Beaty Street Task Force” that worked in partnership with the Town’s Parks & Rec Director to oversee an unprecedented year-long public input, analysis and design process for the Park. In February 2019, that task force presented a final master plan and comprehensive strategic recommendations, including calling for a permanent conservation easement to protect/conserve the Park in perpetuity. On March 19, 2019 the Board unanimously voted to approve the task force recommendations, marking the first time since 1985 that the Town of Davidson had officially recognized the original stated purpose of the Clontz property as publicly-owned open space and a Park, and placing the property under the responsibility of the Town’s Parks & Recreation Department. In July 2019, the Board voted with citizen input to officially name it “Beaty Park”, with a dedication to the Clontz family and in August 2019, approved and executed a proper permanent conservation easement for Beaty Park with the accredited Davidson Lands Conservancy, a leading local conservation group.
LOOKING FORWARD:
Finally protected from further threat of sale/development, today Beaty Park has been identified as a “priority” Parks & Recreation project for the Town of Davidson and community – engineering, site work, design, budgeting/grants and numerous other projects are underway jointly by the Town and Davidson Lands Conservancy to restore the Beaty Pond, improve the property, add sidewalks/multi-use paths on Beaty Street for pedestrian mobility and begin implementing public amenities across the approx. 20 acre property – a legacy conservation and ecological asset just minutes from downtown Davidson that can be enjoyed by citizens across the community for generations to come! Beaty Park had to be saved twice by the community; in the process of finally making it the “promised Park” (as referenced by a local resident), citizens led a historic movement to save the Town from losing sight of its own adopted core values, improve public process and transparency, and uphold principles that make Davidson such a special place to live – or more simply in the words of Mayor Knox, “Do the right thing!”