Dye Creek rehabilitation becomes park priority

Dye Creek as it runs through The Park at Flat Rock

From the Hendersonville Lightning:

With the council's tentative approval, the plan to rehabilitate Dye Creek moved to the top of the priority list, not including work the Village Council is already committed to for the clubhouse renovations and landscape buffering between the park and the Highland Golf Villas.

"It sounds almost too good to be true," said Vice Mayor Nick Weedman. "Here somebody walks in and says we're going to do this amazing thing for you and it's not going to cost you a nickel."

Amazing but true.

The work would be done through a state mitigation credit program under which developers can get a permit for projects that eliminate wetlands by paying for projects to repair or enhance wetlands somewhere else. It's the same program Laurel Park used to re-channel the creek through Rhododendron Lake Park, a job the French Broad Mitigation Partners also completed.

The creek that crosses the Park at Flat Rock from Highland Lake and empties into King Creek was straightened decades ago most likely for farming, said landscape architect Ed Lastein, the village's park development consultant.

"It's in full sun, which means it's choked with vegetation, especially this time of year," he said.

The contractor proposed a new path with "meander bends," stream bank repair and plantings of river birch, flowering dogwood, elderberry and pussy willow. . .

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