I love it…an (un) designated dog run/park…lol 
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That’s great news! Thanks for sharing.
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Council does not listen to the commission. If their NIMBY friends demand that Dix be turned into a “wilderness park” aka an exact copy of Lake Johnson and a smaller, inferior clone of Umstead, then I am extremely concerned that that is what they will get.
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Who’s planning on attending the public meeting Feb 6th? https://dixpark.org/event/final-community-meeting
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I’m confused. Is there another proposal for a “wilderness park”? I haven’t seen this.
???
I’ll be there. Taking the whole family.
There’s a movement to “preserve” it’s natural beauty
https://dix306.com/
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Look through the comments on the master plan on Neighborland and you won’t have to look far to find people demanding that no commercial tenants of any kind be allowed anywhere within the boundaries of the park at all. Similarly, a group of people think the master plan calls for leaving too many of the buildings in place and might prefer to scrape the landscape clean. Some council members (on twitter) have given clues that they may be listening to these people.
I hope that this will not be a controversial issue at council but I think it is not in the bag. Hopefully I am wrong about that.
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There are a lot of people who appear to have a difficult time grasping the concept of an “urban” park. They want a nature preserve. There is a very noisy contingent pushing for this and I believe they even created their own sock puppet accounts to try and sway the comments in their favor.
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The stupid thing is that those things aren’t mutually exclusive. 300 acres is enough room to set aside some nice wetlands/woods or other “natural” features, plus plenty of bird/bat boxes. Heck, Central Park has some of the best birding on the east coast. It’s not like bluebirds and squirrels are incompatible with cafes and theaters.
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Dix306 was sold to us as Raleigh’s Central Park. Well, hold them to it. The best defense is a good offense. Proponents of it being an experience activated urban park should highly reference those activities and experiences that urban parks provide. Central Park is more “Pullen Park” than it ever thought of being “Umstead Park”. Does all of it have to be activity activated? Of course not. However, just reserving land to sit there isn’t the answer to this land. While it may be valuable to some as their personal “buffer” to their adjacent homes, it’s not what Raleigh’s citizens signed up for when it got behind the original Dix306 movement.
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Thank you to everyone who participated on the record for the Master Planning process over the past 18 months. The public comment period is now over. We’ve had over 65,000 residents participate!
We are in the process of reviewing and synthesizing all of your feedback now. Join us to celebrate your dedication and support of Dix Park at our Final Community Meeting on Wednesday, February 6 at the Raleigh Convention Center. Immerse yourself in the Master Plan through an interactive multi-media experience as we bring the outside in.
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Perhaps we now need to shift focus from commenting on the Draft Master Plan to lobbying City Council?
Let’s send our comments to City Council, because we know all the opposition people are definitely doing that!
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It’s happening guys.
The boomers and their eco-nimby ideals are turning this into something that will take a century to complete due to a lack of funding. And they will pat themselves on the back for a job well done. I get the impression that the people who have spearheaded these supposedly “good” changes are the same ones who oppose ADUs, scooters, sidewalks on Oxford Road, short term rentals and basically any change other than turning everything everywhere into a park.
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“Why care about the future when you won’t be around to see it?” The boomer motto. The same folks who took advantage of all the benefits the government had to offer, cheap real estate etc and then once they got theirs, took away the opportunity from others.
Their parents were the greatest generation and they’re contending for the worst.
(Not all boomers)
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Thinking about this a bit more.
I’m not really in favor of ground leases at Dix, basically selling off chunks of the park long term for new construction. Nor am I in favor of turning existing buildings into residential office space permanently behind lock and key.
I do however support allowing commercial, profit seeking tenants to lease space in existing buildings, under a carefully crafted RFP process, under stipulation that the space they use provide a public benefit. Say we want artists in one of the buildings at Dix. Put out an RFP for somebody to do the upfit and manage the space. I have more faith in a profit seeking developer to do a good job upfitting the space into studios that artists will like, and recruiting and keeping it full with interesting artists, because they have skin in the game.
Hotels to me are kind of a borderline case but I do support it, because the rooms would be available for rent to the general public for short terms without prejudice. Any lease term should be relatively short, so the city maintains control of the tenant mix.
The notion that anybody doing something while seeking a profit at Dix somehow make it “icky” is what I strongly disagree with.
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Keep Raleigh Boring seems to be their guiding principle.
This is very disappointing. There are many great natural parks in the Triangle, this is a chance for something unique for the area.
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This is a tragedy. How in the world will the City pay for this magnificent park if it won’t include any private development (a small amount anyway), a hotel, or other revenue-earning opportunities? There are other parks in the City that need to be funded too, and unless there’s a drastic increase in the parks budget we might see funding diverted away from existing parks. This park is intended to be the crown jewel of Raleigh’s park system, and a model for parks of this size. With all of the talk about ecology and environmental sustainability within the park, I think we forgot about one important aspect, which drives all of the others: economic sustainability.
Unfortunately, we live in a society in which the people who shout the loudest usually get their voices heard, whether they are in the majority or not. Let’s hope the park planning staff and the City will see through the opposition and recognize the need for funding sources within the park.
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I’d prefer to keep the park a park first and foremost, and not an office park… so I’m not upset about the changes like some are.
Eco-NIMBYs? Most Boomers are SUV driving, Trump voting, hyper-capitalists that care only about saving tax dollars, at the expense of everyone that will live on this planet after them. The group you’re talking about is a pretty small minority in their age bracket.
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