At Pittsboro’s First Sunday, vendors were in the hot black parking lot instead of along the sidewalk of our main street. With no trees to offer shade it was sweltering. On WRAL May 3 evening news,when she was discussing “heat islands”. the reporter said pavement can heat an area 20 degrees hotter than a natural setting. With climate change bringing many problems, trees can offer some relief or mitigation from heat and offer beauty and fresh air and oxygen as well as carbon sequestration. Planting shade trees could help unless they end up like the ones in Walmart’s parking lot in Siler City.
The town of Pittsboro has a tree ordinance in its planned Unified Development Ordinance that has been moving at a snail’s pace towards a finished document. Please encourage town board members and staff to make sure trees are protected while we still have some. Chatham Park has bulldozed many acres of forests already. It seems the community may have saved the hardwoods of the cross country track at Northwood High School –the soccer fields developers wanted to put on public land now seem to be slated for land in Chatham Park (or whatever name that new location on their property is called).
Rezoning needs to be put on hold in Pittsboro’s ETJ where residents can’t vote but are greatly impacted by increasing traffic, road closures for construction, disturbing changes to rural areas, and other delights related to development. We’re losing farmland and forests that gave our beautiful county so much delightful beauty and grace. Alston Chapel Rd landowners are among the latest threatened from outside developers. Tell town board members we care about the trees and rural character of our county!
From: Duck Decoy
Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2024 at 02:39:19 PM EDT
Subject: trees and land need protection