news-record.com

BROWNS SUMMIT — The plan being developed for Haw River State Park stresses its role in environmental education, deferring a bigger footprint for outdoor recreation until the state can buy more land.

The park’s environmental center, which continues to evolve on the grounds of a former church conference center, will remain the feature that sets Haw River apart, said Elizabeth Chesnut, director of the state Division of Park and Recreation’s planning and design program.

The state has similar facilities at Goose Creek State Park for the eastern part of the state and at South Mountains in the west.

“So Haw River State Park is the site of our central or Piedmont environmental education. That’s a large part of what this park is going to be about,” said Chesnut, who is supervising creation of the park’s master plan.

The tentative plan also features more traditional park uses on a separate piece of land along Church Street southwest of the center, called the Haw West section. It would include several relatively small camping areas, hiking trails, and places for picnicking, bird watching or observing wildlife.

But more land is needed before adding such uses as trails for mountain biking or the larger “tent and trailer” type of family campground that requires at least 30 pads, Chesnut said.

The master plan, set for completion by spring, will guide the park’s development for 15 to 20 years.

Chesnut, other park-system leaders and consultants presented a preliminary version Tuesday to about 100 residents in a meeting at the environmental center. Park officials sought public opinion at the meeting and will continue accepting comments by traditional mail and e-mail through Nov. 4.

The state has spent more than $20 million on the new park since 2004. But it remains relatively small by state-park standards because of the high cost of land in the desirable suburban setting.

The park system does not condemn land, but only buys from willing sellers. So it’s not clear how big the park eventually will grow or whether it will extend farther east and west along the Haw River as the plan describes.

Another unknown is whether the Mountains-to-Sea Trail will border the park as the plan foresees, sparking more camping and other opportunities.

Chestnut calls the trail’s route beside the park “a possibility” because it depends on factors the park system can’t control. The ambitious, cross-state trail is complete in some parts of North Carolina but still in flux across the Triad.

The preliminary Haw River plan presents the clearest vision of the environmental center’s future.

It suggests adding a night-sky observatory near the existing center and, in another area, an elevated boardwalk that would take visitors directly into the tree canopy high above the wetlands.

More youth cabins would be built to serve, for example, the many school groups studying at the center. The plan also proposes a shelter near the center for groups to study outdoors.

The plan is wise to create separate areas for visitors to the environmental center and those at Haw River for more traditional park activities, said David Craft, a Greensboro resident and member of the park’s citizen advisory board.

But he’s less enthusiastic about some parts of the preliminary plan, which he worries might be trying to squeeze too much into too small an area.

“I think they’re going to get a lot of comments from people and they’ll make some adjustments, just because they’ve never tried to put a park together like this in an urban area,” Craft said of park planners. “But we will get there and it’s going to be great.”

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com