Wendell Falls will be the very definition of sprawl. The 4,000-home subdivision will rise on a rural patch southwest of Wendell, just off the new U.S. 64/264 bypass, miles from downtown Raleigh, Research Triangle Park and the closest public bus.
There’s little doubt the homes in Wendell Falls will sell. All over the Triangle — from Clayton to Holly Springs, out to Pittsboro and back to South Durham, over to North Raleigh and Wake Forest — people fulfill their three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath dreams where new subdivisions bleed into the countryside.
“Sprawl works,” said Greg Ferguson, a partner in Mercury Development of Raleigh, one of the companies planning Wendell Falls. “It works for what the people here want.”
In many circles, sprawl is a dirty word. It’s blamed for ravaging the landscape, fouling the air and water and creating traffic congestion and soulless subdivisions, not to mention contributing to obesity and social isolation. It’s the subject of numerous books (e.g. “Sprawl Kills”) and campaigns by groups dedicated to “smart growth.”
Yet the Triangle continues to sprawl. Since 1990, Raleigh has annexed 45 square miles to accommodate more than 110,000 new residents. Eight outlying towns have seen their populations more than double.
“Certainly we’re not doing anywhere near enough to consolidate growth and discourage sprawl,” said Molly Diggins, state director of the Sierra Club. “The danger for North Carolina is that we are such an attractive state, will we grow until we become undesirable and unattractive?”
Most of the people driving this growth are happy about their new homes in the suburbs or the opening stores in new strip centers. They’ve heard the mantras against sprawl, but they like where they are. They like playing in their yards, being able to afford an extra bedroom and having a new Applebee’s around the corner.
Sprawl has been part of doomsday scenarios for the Triangle for decades. In 1984, a consultant hired by the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce warned that traffic congestion, crowded schools and sprawling growth were beginning to harm the region’s quality of life and scare off business. The headline in The Raleigh Times read: “Sprawl Seen Threat to Area Prosperity.”
But others say sprawl is inevitable in a growing region such as the Triangle. As long as people keep moving in, they say, cities and towns will continue to spread.
“Sprawl is a fact of life,” said Wayne Sadlowski, who recently moved to Heritage Wake Forest, a 1,500-acre golf course community six miles north of Interstate 540.
The Nasty Affliction
Despite the gloomy predictions in 1984, the Triangle remains prosperous and still ranks high among places to live and do business, Raleigh Chamber President Harvey Schmitt said. Last week, Kiplinger.com, a business Web site, listed Raleigh among the country’s “Seven Cool Cities” because of the region’s healthy job market, top universities and plentiful, inexpensive housing.
“I don’t go to sleep at night with great anxieties about sprawl,” Schmitt said.
Ferguson, the Wendell Falls developer, doesn’t like the word “sprawl” — or, as he puts it, “this nasty affliction of a prosperous economy.” He prefers to call it “growth.”
Wendell Falls will have single-family homes from $180,000 to $500,000, a pool and other amenities and, Ferguson hopes, its own interchange off the U.S. 64/264 bypass, six minutes from the Beltline. He says it will appeal to middle-class families who want a little bit of grass.
“Who doesn’t like to live in a cul-de-sac if they’ve got little kids?” Ferguson said.
He compares Wendell Falls to Heritage Wake Forest, where the Sadlowskis moved a month ago from the Boston area. As newcomers with three small boys, the Sadlowskis wanted a home in a new planned community where they would meet other relocated families at the pool or on the golf course.
Sadlowski said he found Cary “sprawlish,” lots of houses but no heart or community feel. By contrast, he said, Heritage provides plenty of opportunities for families to meet each other, the way previous generations did in small towns.
“When planned communities are done correctly, it not only counterbalances sprawl, it also makes it nice,” Sadlowski said.
Andy Ammons, the developer for Heritage Wake Forest, said homebuyers increasingly want neighborhoods where they can interact with others, which means sidewalks that lead to stores, schools and recreational facilities. He said many recent arrivals come from places such as California and Atlanta with much more serious sprawl.
“They say we don’t have that kind of problem yet,” Ammons said. “It depends on your point of view more than anything.”
The Triangle is still a young place with plenty of room to grow around the edges, developers say. When the region spreads out so far that people can no longer stand their commutes, then more developers will build mid-rise condos closer to job centers, as they do in Atlanta. The market will adjust.
The Waiting Game
Smart-growth advocates say local governments should try to prevent the kind of sprawl and gridlock that bedevils Atlanta, not just wait for it to drive people nuts. They say government should make it easier for developers to build in established areas, require more mixing of homes and businesses to encourage walking and build a healthy mass-transit system.
Premium prices for homes downtown and in other city neighborhoods show that people are willing to live where they can walk, said Cara Crisler of the N.C. Smart Growth Alliance in Carrboro. An 1,800-square-foot condo at the converted Cotton Mill in downtown Raleigh is on the market for $349,900, for example.
“We just don’t have enough supply of the alternatives,” Crisler said. “The demand is so high that the cost becomes unaffordable.”
And just because suburban living is popular doesn’t mean it’s good for the community or the environment, said D.R. Bryan, a developer who has built both golf course communities and Southern Village, which put homes around a town center of businesses, a school and a church.
Sprawl, Bryan said, requires expensive roads, feeds a national dependence on foreign oil and results in polluted air and streams and lost natural areas.
“For me to live out in the country and drive 15 miles to work, the only thing it costs me is extra gas money,” Bryan said.
So people continue to move out, even when they know the congestion they leave behind will eventually catch up with them.
For five years, Michele and Michael Mercado watched development and traffic increase around their neighborhood off U.S. 501 in North Durham. So last fall, they moved to Cardinal Lake, a new subdivision off a two-lane country road near Falls Lake with walking trails, a pool and a fishing pond.
Michele Mercado, a stay-at-home mom, said they know the respite from congestion is temporary.
“We wanted to have at least five years before we begin to see that take place again,” she said. “You can’t stop growth.”
