An end to the beginning. . .

The Park at Flat Rock

Yesterday, the Village of Flat Rock officially opened the perimeter trail at The Park at Flat Rock. Students from Flat Rock Middle School were invited to participate by planting a sugar maple at the park to commemorate Earth Day. The event was covered by both the Times-News and the Hendersonville Lightning.

For me, this felt like an end to the beginning. . .

On October 20, 2011, the front page of the Times-News declared:

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners voted today to purchase the Highland Lake Golf Club in Flat Rock to convert the property to a soccer complex and public park.

In a 4-1 vote, commissioners agreed to buy the 65-acre site, currently a 9-hole public course, for $1.15 million.

Commissioner Larry Young was the lone dissenter. He said he could not support the project at a time when the county has cut its budget by 7.5 percent. . .

From that day to this has involved many people, lots of time, and a big financial commitment on the part of the village council and the citizens of Flat Rock once the decision was made to buy the property. The village avoided county control of a large area of pastoral land at one of the gateways into the village as well as the traffic and noise that would have resulted if a soccer complex had been built, especially since the county saw it as a regional soccer destination for tournaments and possible night play.

Much more work needs to be done, and part of that will fall to the Flat Rock Park and Recreation Foundation and their new director of development, Maurean Adams, as they start fundraising efforts.

Early on, in 2011, three residential neighborhood homeowner associations (HOA) worked together to keep the county from buying the property: Highland Golf Villas, Highland Lake Village, and Staton Woods. Those developments surrounded the Highland Lake Golf Club and would have been the most impacted by any soccer complex development.

In deciding how to handle the situation under time pressure, the HOAs made the commitment to seek legal counsel. Looking at it from the outside (since I wasn't on the village council at the time), I think this was the deciding factor in keeping the county from purchasing the property. Once counsel was retained, I think everyone realized they needed to take a breather and really investigate what was going on. The village discovered that they had the final control because of village zoning, and the county realized that they could not dictate the end result.

It wasn't an easy decision to hire an attorney since no one knew how much time would be needed to present a case and what the final costs would be. Ed Foster, then president of Highland Golf Villas, took the lead in committing to retaining legal advice, even though it wasn't what he signed up for when he became HOA president. Without that commitment from Ed, I think it would have been much more difficult to stop the county. Donations for the legal fund were asked for, and residents responded. In fact, the amount donated was just over what the legal bill ended up being--so all donors got a little back. I always thought that was pretty amazing.

Now that The Park at Flat Rock is a reality, I would like to thank Ed for starting the process of pushing back on the county when he called a meeting of local residents at the Henderson County main library on October 26, 2011; for always supporting the efforts to stop the county purchase; and for always being willing to take the next step in any way needed while this issue was being fought. I'm glad to see he was at the trail opening ceremony on Tuesday--with, I may add, his dog very properly on a leash!

Ed Foster and his dog, Spook, watch the event. 
[photo by Taylor Heery Griffith, Hendersonville Lightning] 

So if this is an end to the beginning, I guess that means we're at the beginning of . . . what? Huummm . . .