The Open Space Plan Takes Its Next Step

Council got its first full look at the town’s Open Space Plan on Thursday. The plan is a long-term guide for the parts of Cary that stay green: parks, greenways, woods, and land that the town protects from development.

The numbers behind it may feel surprising to some of you. Staff told council that about 42 percent of Cary is open space today, roughly 34 square miles, and that about 30 percent of the town is protected for good.

The plan sorts that land into five kinds, from neighborhood parks to large nature preserves, and it sets five goals for it: protect more of it, connect the pieces to each other, take care of what the town already has, support the people and groups that use it, and keep growing it as Cary grows.

Thursday was the first step in this plan. Council sent it to the Planning and Zoning Board, a board of residents that reviews plans like this one and gives council its advice, and then the plan will come back to council for a vote.

If the idea sounds familiar, it is the same question that has been playing out this fall on a smaller scale at 600 and 604 Kildaire Farm Road. The town owns those two wooded parcels, and neighbors and preservationists are asking the town to keep them as open space.