Federal law. If you want fed funds, you need to get market revenue from your assets. I hate it threatens to dimish the park, but understand the concept.
From the N&O story, it does soundi like that want to do low impact development that enhances the woodsy park experiance
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Seems like we go through this every 5-7 years. Hopefully they work out another deal with the county to keep this as is.
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How can this be developed if it’s a county park? Is there a mistake in how this is being communicated? Should it really read something like this? “RDU to develop its land next to Lake Crabtree County Park…”
The county leases the parkland from the airport.
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Ah, that explains it; but how can it be developed if the county has it under lease? Is it expiring soon? Is this entire process performative?
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A NEW RECORD! RDU saw 15.5 million travelers in 2024, the airport’s all-time high — up 6.5% over 2023. (Per RDU FB Page)
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Raise your hand if you participated in making this happen! 
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The whole RDU - Lake Crabtree Park thing confuses me.
I get that the FAA is saying RDU needs to make money on their land. But WHY is that only applying to the Lake Crabtree Park land and not allllllllllll the other land that RDU has??
Like the Pleasant Grove Church Rd land would be much easier to develop, right?? The land around economy lot #3?
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pretty sure the distinction is that the property is under lease to a third party. That’s an easier distinction to say “you’re not getting fair market for this” when rent is $1/year
My autocorrect really doesn’t like this website
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So what we need is for RDU to “terminate” its lease with Wake County and then just internally operate it as a park. FAA can shut the hell up about it. Problem solved!
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Why is the FAA even involved in how an airport manages its land?
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Probably because they want to make sure the airport is doing everything they can to make money if the FAA is gonna be giving them grants
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I don’t want this land to be developed but what if this could be the site of the new Children’s Hospital? However I don’t think some bureaucrat in DC should tell RDU how to use this property when a park is a proper buffer. You can’t build residential and does there really need more hotels and gas stations there??
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It’s not a specific decision affecting RDU, this is a blanket rule that any airport property leased to a third party at any airport can’t be leased on a sweetheart deal so that the airport stays solvent. The feds don’t want to have to step in and keep the airport open because the locals can’t or won’t make money.
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Well I feel like RDU is doing fine, and if they become insolvent, then the FAA can look into their assets before bailing them out.
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The rules are the rules and much as we don’t like them we have basically no ability to influence or change things.
The lakeside area that’s actually developed as a park, evidently, is safe. I’m not exactly sure why; perhaps it’s not buildable.
It’s the single track MTB trails that are at risk. If Wake wants to keep that they’re going to have to find a way to pony up, end of story.
Of course the trails at The Crab are beloved by the local community, so I hope a solution can be found.
One thing that’s always bothered me a bit, though, is that Umstead is HUGE. Like, insanely huge! … and under-developed. This park is literally at the absolute beating heart of a 2+ million person region, and yet its facilities are no more (perhaps less) developed than what you might expect at a state park in some remote corner of the state.
Part of the justification for why there have been no single-track trails developed at Umstead since the explosion of MTB as a sport in the 90s, has always been “Well, it’s not needed - people can just go to Crabtree!” The trails at Crabtree have been there since 1992. What happens, though, if those trails are no more? Does NC DPR reconsider their stance on further development at Umstead?
If the worst-case scenario comes to pass, and the single-track trails at Crabtree are leased and developed, it seems like there would be an opportunity for Umstead to step in and fill the gap by adding some new facilities. There are massive stretches of this park that are completely inaccessible. No roads, no trails, no navigable creeks - nothing. While keeping a stretch of relatively undisturbed nature in the center of an urban area seems, on face value at least, like an honorable goal - if I’m honest I’d like to see Umstead do more with this land to serve the needs of the people living in the Triangle.
I’m not suggesting that they turn this into baseball fields, amphitheaters, dog parks, splash pads, campgrounds, or whatever. But for light, low-impact, day-use, recreational facilities, it seems like there’s a lot of opportunity for more. Things like single track mountain bike trails, more hiking trails, disc golf… this is a 5600 acre park. It should not be difficult to carve out a few hundred acres to “replace” what is lost at Crabtree - and then some - without running afoul of the park’s conservation-focused vision at all.
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I really like that there’s camping at Umstead within relatively easy biking distance of downtown Raleigh and it serves as a thoroughfare for me when I bike from Morrisville to Raleigh but Lake Crabtree and Umstead feel really close together. Yet trying to serve similar purposes and disconnected. I basically only find myself going to Crabtree when I specifically want a lake and don’t really want a hike on my way back from work. Then again I don’t really mountain bike. I tried to go biking there once but wasn’t really expecting that it was technical mountain biking instead of just a dirt trail.
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Ah, representative democracy at its finest
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Keep in mind that Umstead was entirely disturbed land less than a century ago.
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