Agenda - 04-10-2006 - 7a - Laserfiche WebLink

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Fairview Park Opportunities and Constraints a� I. Background Orange County and the Town of Hillsborough own two adjacent tracts (67 acres total), which have long been identified as a Fairview community park. The site is located just outside the Hillsborough town limits and one-third mile from the intersection of NC 86 and US 70 Bypass. Orange County owns an adjacent 26 acres (3 adjoining tracts) that includes the County's Public Works facility. Maps are provided as Figures 1 and 2. The Town once owned all 67 acres and used a portion of the site as the town landfill. A review of old aerial photos (1938— 1993) indicates the earliest use of the landfill was sometime between 1938 and 1955 (Attachment 1). The 1955 photo shows what appears to be a small dumpsite accessed from the old McAdams Road (or "Yanceyville Road"), which once paralleled today's NC 86 north of Hillsborough. [McAdams Road was abandoned sometime between 1955 and 1966.] By 1966 the dumpsite was larger and was accessed from a new entrance road (off Torain Street), which today is "Fairview Park Road" and runs along the line of the Town and County tracts. The landfill was closed in the early 1980s in conjunction with a Northern Fairview community revitalization project. In 1983, the County purchased 42 acres containing most of the former dumpsite for a reported $70,000, and initiated plans for a new County park. A master site plan for an "Orange County Community Park" was completed by L.E. Wooten & Company in 1986. That plan showed a proposed main entrance to the park from Torain Street, an 84-car parking area, two baseball fields (one lighted), one soccer field, a fitness trail, a picnic area with shelter and grills, and a playground with"tot lot" and parking for 8 cars (Attachment 2). The 1983 park master plan was for the County tract only. The County built a playground and large parking area for the park in 1989-90. Over the next 12 years, however, several storm events helped to delay further development of the park: a tornado (11/92), Hurricane Fran (9/96), severe wind storm (5/00), and the more recent ice storms. Tree limbs and other wood debris were hauled to the County. property and deposited in the parking area for temporary storage and handling. Some of the material was chipped and removed or buried on site. Following Hurricane Fran (1996), the Town of Hillsborough also began hauling storm debris and yard waste for temporary storage at the northern end of the Town's adjacent property. In 1999-2000 a Fairview resident (James Stewart) constructed a baseball field on the County tract. The ball field, known as the "Field of Dreams," was built over a portion of the former landfill northeast of the playground. Local teams played there for two or three years until concerns were raised over the potential adverse affects to the health and safety of the users of the field. The County hired Trigon Engineering to conduct an environmental/geo-technical analysis of the property. The study found that surface soils in the Fairview Park area have naturally occurring levels of arsenic (i.e., not from the landfill) that exceed state and federal standards for ingestion, but not for exposure. The County concluded that the ball field was safe from an environmental exposure standpoint and further developed the ball field, while assuming field maintenance responsibilities. Page 1 of 9