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Foothills Conservancy details Oak Hill Park growth, $1M in hurricane relief for trail repairs
Summary
Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina told Burke County commissioners the Oak Hill Community Park & Forest draws about 30,000 visitors a year, highlighted expansion of trails and adaptive-access features, and said roughly $1,000,000 in congressionally appropriated hurricane-relief funds will be available for trail repairs and related projects.
Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina representatives updated Burke County commissioners on recreational projects and funding on Oct. 6, saying local and regional trail work is expanding and will boost visitor activity and local spending.
"We are experiencing somewhere in that range of about 30,000 annual visitors to the park," Andrew Coda, executive director of Foothills Conservancy, told commissioners, describing Oak Hill Community Park & Forest as a community asset that has drawn substantial use since opening. Shane Crisby, the conservancy's trails program director, said Oak Hill covers about 656 acres and includes roughly 12 miles of trails.
The presentation outlined several ongoing and planned initiatives: completion and maintenance of the Bob Benner Memorial Trail, development of a Catawba Meadows mountain-bike system intended to host scholastic cycling events, and the Wilderness Gateway State Trail, a planned 170-mile corridor. Crisby said the conservancy is working with the National Park Service to distribute approximately $1,000,000 in congressionally appropriated hurricane-relief funding to trail projects, and that the Henry Fork River Preserve project is "fully funded" and under contract.
Coda and Crisby framed the work as both conservation and an economic-development tool. Crisby cited an estimate that a three-day interscholastic cycling event could produce about $90,000 in direct spending for the local economy, noting that adaptive-bike design and wider trail bridges will both increase accessibility and lower emergency-response costs by permitting smaller maintenance and emergency vehicles to use the trail corridor.
Presenters also described partnerships with local land managers and groups (including volunteers who support restoration projects such as hybrid chestnut plantings) and said the conservancy will provide a fuller slide presentation at the board's regular meeting on Oct. 20.
The board had no substantive questions in this session and left a fuller discussion on the Oct. 20 agenda. The presentation materials and maps were provided to commissioners in the meeting packet.
