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HGTV Behind the Scenes
Be sure to watch local Holly Springs real estate agent Erica Anderson on a new episode of HGTVs’ House Hunters, airing June 4, 2014, at 10 PM. Erica had the pleasure of working with Erik and Caroline Zilli with the search for their first home purchase. They looked in the Cary, Apex and surrounding areas before deciding on their perfect home.
Watch Erica work hard to show Erik and Caroline some top contenders and see if you can figure out which one they ended up choosing!
Show Information:
Tea Room Needed in North Carolina
Episode HNT-8811H
If you would like to work with Erica Anderson, feel free to call or text her directly at: (919) 610-5126.
“It’s so broad that there are very few areas that won’t be impacted,” realtor Erica Anderson said. “All the possibilities really scare off buyers.”
HOLLY SPRINGS, North Carolina
There is more uncertainty now over plans to complete the 540 loop around Raleigh as the North Carolina Department of Transportation says it will study all 17 routes before deciding which one to choose.
That study will take two years to complete, and the 17 potential routes impact a huge area that could impact 60,000 homeowners — plus parks, businesses and schools.
The purple route, for example, would run through a current Holly Springs neighborhood and wipe out homes.
Karri Stamer, who lives where the Purple Route would run, said, “It puts a lot of stress on the whole neighborhood and individual families. Let’s say a job opportunity comes up — you’re stuck.”
Terry Gibson, the chief engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, said the final decision will include a number of factors, including the number of homes and parks in addition to the impact on streams and wetlands.
While the study is underway, property values will be impacted over a wide area.
“It’s so broad that there are very little areas that won’t be impacted,” realtor Erica Anderson said. “All the possibilities really scare off buyers.”
The DOT promises that it will get public input before any decisions are made.
But Brian Worrilow, who is worried about the decision, said, said he intends to “be loud enough that they go with the Orange Route.
The Orange Route was the original route proposed for 540. It was part of the area they left undeveloped for the highway and many folks made their home-buying decisions based on where the Orange Route would go.
“No one wants to buy a house that might have a major highway go through it,” Worrilow said.
But as of today, no one knows where the 540 extension is going. But the North Carolina DOT said it needs two years to study all the routes and decide which one will hurt the smallest number of people.
“We owe it to the communities in the region to make sure we pick the route with the least environmentally damaging effects,” Gibson said.
In the meantime, there’s such a broad area being studied that real estate agents worry about the impact on the area’s economy.
“The two-year lag when we’re just starting to see improvement in our market is horrific,” Anderson said.
According to the DOT website, the preferred alternative will be selected in the fall of 2015, right of way acquisition would begin in the summer of 2017 and construction would begin in the spring of 2018.
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“Even if a buyer wants to buy it, it won’t appraise for as much as it would if there’s no superhighway in the backyard,” Anderson said.
HOLLY SPRINGS, North Carolina
The North Carolina Department of Transportation is looking to complete the 540 Outerloop around Raleigh by connecting N.C. 540 from Apex to Knightdale by choosing the route with the least impact on the area. Approximately 52,000 residents could be impacted by one of the 17 possible routes drawn up by the DOT. The Southeast Extension would extend the Triangle Expressway from the U.S. Route 1 in Apex to the U.S. 64/U.S. 264 Bypass in Knightdale.
The DOT began a two-year study to determine the numbers of homes, businesses and the impact on the environment all considered in choice of the final route. Some residents that moved into the area chose their neighborhoods carefully.
Krista McGivern’s backyard could become the Southeast Extension. She is fighting the route that would move N.C. 540 through her neighborhood. “We’ve got a good group in the neighborhood to fight it as best we can to make sure it doesn’t happen,” McGivern said.
Real estate agent Erica Anderson said property values in the area of the potential Southeast Extension are suffering. “Even if a buyer wants to buy it, it won’t appraise for as much as it would if there’s no superhighway in the backyard,” Anderson said.
The DOT said public input is critical in this process as the department decides how to proceed. According to the NCDOT’s website, the extension is planned to be open to traffic in the Spring of 2022.
HOLLY SPRINGS
A familiar fight is playing out in this growing suburban town, where some people celebrate new neighbors, restaurants and stores while others bemoan traffic jams and crowded schools.
But unlike many growth disputes throughout the Triangle that quickly fizzle, this one is bitterly dividing residents and reshaping the town’s governing board. The way it all plays out could set the tone for years to come in terms of new development and construction.
“There’s another Civil War, but this time it’s within Holly Springs,” said longtime resident Kevin Adams, who volunteers with the town and manages a Facebook group that encourages discussion about local issues.
During last month’s election, voters booted out two Town Council members who were considered pro-growth and replaced them with newcomers who want to slow the pace of growth so roads, sidewalks, and schools can catch up.
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The top vote-getter in the November election was Christine Kelly, who emerged as a divisive candidate after she accused some town leaders of ethics violations and complained about a plan to close part of the street where she lives.
Tensions were apparent Tuesday, Dec. 5, when the new six-member council met for the first time. A majority of the council selected Tom O’Brien as mayor pro tem instead of Cheri Ann Lee, who has been on the board since 2011, highlighting the emergence of two competing factions.
Mayor Dick Sears, who has led the town for 16 years, and Lee are aligned as pro-growth leaders who have supported countless new subdivisions and commercial projects. Under Sears’ watch, the town has gotten a cultural center, a library, new parks, a nature center and a baseball stadium.
Jimmy Cobb and Hank Dickson, who lost their re-election bids last month, were generally seen as allies with Sears and Lee.
But now a majority of the council members say they want to take a more cautious approach to growth: Kelly, O’Brien, Dan Berry and Peter Villadsen.
“I think in order for a town to survive, we have to grow,” O’Brien said. “I don’t see anyone on the council as stopping growth at all, but the number one concern is traffic. How do we help support infrastructure for the growth of the town? How do we fix that?”
About 19 miles southwest of downtown Raleigh, Holly Springs didn’t have a modern sewage system until the early 1990s, let alone shopping plazas and sprawling subdivisions. As the Triangle grew, so did Holly Springs, into a bustling family-friendly suburb of more than 33,000 people. Many residents commute to jobs in Raleigh and Research Triangle Park, an easier trip now that the state has extended N.C. 540 through town.
Christine Kelly walks to the front of the Holly Springs council chambers to take her oath as a new council member on Dec. 5, 2017.
Autumn Linford
Sears said it will be bad for Holly Springs if the Town Council starts to deny development proposals. Developers might choose to take their business to Apex or Fuquay-Varina instead, he said, and Holly Springs would possibly have to raise taxes to compensate for slower growth.
He said the new council members’ concerns about infrastructure are understandable but unrealistic.
“I think what I’ve got to instill in the newbies is that the system for growth doesn’t quite work that way,” Sears said. “It doesn’t work like, let’s get all the sidewalks and roads and bridges and then deal with the developments coming in.”
Along with disagreements about how the town should deal with growth, council members are still licking their wounds from the heated election. Campaign signs for candidates on both sides of the growth debate were defaced, knocked down and stolen. Discussions on Facebook groups have included unfounded accusations and name-calling – “sore losers,” “unfair,” “petty.”
Ill will peak in mid-October when then-candidate Kelly publicly accused Sears, Lee, Cobb, Dickson, and town attorney John Schifano of violating various sections of the town’s Code of Ethics and Conduct. In 53 allegations, Kelly accused the group of voting with bias on a proposal that would close a portion of her street, making inappropriate comments on social media and accepting improper campaign contributions.
Heated exchange between Holly Springs resident and town board and attorney
Watch a portion of a tense Holly Springs town council meeting with a heated exchanged between citizen Christine Kelly and the council and town attorney.
Town of Holly Springs
Holly Springs hired Katie Hartzog, a Raleigh attorney, to investigate the claims, and she found no merit to Kelly’s allegations. The attorney said Kelly had lodged the complaint in an effort to delay the council’s vote on a downtown project.
“Ms. Kelly stated that she had a ‘hunch’ about potential violations but offered no specific facts,” Hartzog wrote in a Nov. 22 report. “In conclusion, I have found no credible evidence of an ethics violation in this matter.”
The Town Council agreed to ask Kelly to voluntarily pay the $9,000 spent on legal fees. Kelly denied to comment on the request, and she said the allegations were not made as a political ploy to gain votes.
“I don’t think the election was about that complaint,” she said. “The election was about the issues like discussed on the Citizens for the Responsible Growth (Facebook) page. The outcome of the election was not changed because of that.”
Much of the back-and-forth debate about growth in Holly Springs continues to play out on Facebook groups: Citizens for the Responsible Growth of Holly Springs, which supports increased infrastructure, and the Citizens for Responsible Truth of Holly Springs, which supports the previous council.
Some people pointed out that the Anti-Bullying Committee, an effort spearheaded by Sears to combat bullying in schools, was not registered as a nonprofit with the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS status is pending, and the group is registered as a nonprofit with the state of North Carolina.
Sears became a meme last month when the Facebook group Holly Springs Memes posted a picture of him with the caption, “For God’s sake will someone shut Sears Facebook access down.”
Sears said the drama has become so intense that he won’t seek re-election in 2020.
A Facebook post calls for newly elected Holly Springs Town Council member Christine Kelly to resign.
Screenshot
Some people started writing posts on Facebook calling for Kelly’s resignation before she took office. Kelly said she has no plans to resign.
Tensions about growth bled into the real world in March, when Lee said she was harangued at her son’s soccer game. The incident was about her vote to approve a new housing development on Honeycutt Road that will add 392 single family homes and 210 multi-family buildings on the southwest side of town.
“I’m worried about Holly Springs now,” Lee said of the new council. “I feel like this is all a power trip and not what’s best for the town. … The old regime needed some change, but people need to remember this group is what made Holly Springs the place where everyone wants to live.”
Kelly said voters have made it clear they weren’t happy with the town’s direction.
“From the election results, I believe that the residents of Holly Springs were looking for a change,” she said. “I know that change is not always easy, but I look forward to working with everyone on the new opportunities in town.”
Council members say they hope to put any hard feelings aside and work together.
“My opinion is that if there’s an elephant in the room, then we should talk about it and work it out to do what’s right for the town,” Berry said.
Dickson, who was not re-elected, shared some advice for the new council members during his last meeting earlier this month.
“You must have thick skin,” he said. “If you don’t know, grow some because you are now wearing a target. Get ready. It starts in a few minutes.”
On Facebook, some people are gearing up for a bumpy ride.
“I, for one, am very much looking forward to watching our newly reelected Mayor work with the new Council members,” Peter Hewitt wrote Nov. 11 on the Citizens for the Responsible Growth of Holly Springs page. “Do they allow popcorn in the Council Chambers?”
