A celebration of our valley’s past and current community spirit was on display at the inaugural Haw Creek Heritage Festival on September 23. This free, family-friendly event was a successful collaboration with Central East United Methodist Church, the Haw Creek Commons, and the Haw Creek Community Association.

Held at the Haw Creek Commons, the festival featured live music from three local bands: the Haw Creek Sweet Hots, the Walker Family Band, and Wayne Erbsen and the UNCA Bluegrass Band. There were food trucks, a documentary featuring local storytellers, and lots of kids’ activities, including a bouncy house, face painting, and games.

We hope to make this celebration of Haw Creek an annual tradition.

The City of Asheville approved funding in March to develop a comprehensive parks and recreation plan, called Recreate Asheville: Shaping Our City’s Parks. The plan is being developed to inform and steer the next 10+ years of planning and decision-making for Asheville Parks & Recreation (APR). 

The first step is to assess the community’s needs, which includes four open house workshops in October to give residents a chance to offer their ideas and feedback. There will be fun kids’ activities at each workshop.

• Thursday, Oct. 5, 5-7 p.m. at WNC Nature Center
• Friday, Oct. 6, 8 a.m.-12 p.m. at Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center
• Monday, Oct. 9, 2-6 p.m. at Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center
  
• Thursday, Oct. 12, 5-7 p.m. at Carrier Park
  

For those who can’t attend in person, you can share your thoughts in the online survey available through Monday, Nov. 20 — or look for the APR team at local farmers markets, festivals, and park events as they gather community comments.

After the needs have been determined, the next step will consist of drafting recommendations for the City and sharing them with the public and City advisory groups, which is expected to last from this winter to the spring of 2024.

Once draft recommendations have been finalized, APR will develop a strategic action plan to present to the City Council for adoption — aiming for the summer of 2024.

When word got out last winter that the 26-acre Burnett/King parcel on New Haw Creek Road was to be sold, the Haw Creek Community Association set to work trying to find a buyer who would be interested in preserving some of this exceptional property. We found a local buyer committed to preserving the pasture area in a conservation easement, however, his offer was not accepted when the property went on the market in late July.

The buyer, whose higher-priced offer was accepted, is now in due diligence, a process that can take several months. Actual transfer of ownership will likely not occur until early 2024. The new owner and his family have a long history in Asheville. He has graciously agreed to attend HCCA’s community meeting on November 14, to share his vision for the property. We're hopeful the new owner will be open to partnership opportunities such as, perhaps, a greenway along the creek.

See our events page for details on and to register for this public meeting.

We are delighted to announce two new and significant additions to the HCCA website: Masters Park Wildflowers and Masters Park Trees. Over 200 different wildflowers and over 40 tree leaves have been photographed and identified by long-time Haw Creek resident and Blue Ridge Naturalist Bernard Arghiere. 

For more than two decades, Bernie has been hiking the trail in Masters Park, and the connecting section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail that leads to the Haw Creek overlook rock. Using his iPhone camera, he captured the wildflower and tree leaf images at their seasonal peak. This archive of botanical images is an outstanding collection of Haw Creek-area flowers and trees from the early 21st century. 

We encourage you to explore these two new sections devoted to the wildflowers and trees found in our Haw Creek neighborhood, and then try to find your favorite flower or tree growing in the park.

Every one of the 100+ chairs set up at the East Asheville Library was taken at Tuesday evening's Living with Black Bears program—a clear indication that this subject continues to concern and connect us. This was the third bear education program that the Haw Creek Community Association has organized over the last 10 years, and this week it reached beyond those of us who live in Haw Creek. Neighbors from Beverly Hills, Oakley, Swannanoa, and Fairview came to listen and learn, ask questions, and take home information to share with their friends and community.

Ashley Hobbs, Special Projects Biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC), focuses on black bears in the state of North Carolina. Her knowledge and field experience were evident in her presentation, which provided everything each of us needs to know about living safely with black bears.

Buncombe County represents more than a third of all bear-related calls for help and advice that the NCWRC receives in a year, and that's because we have more bears and more human/bear interactions than any other county in the state.

The most important fact that Ashley emphasized is that the only reason bears appear at our door is food availability—and they can smell food 10 miles (or more) away! If we, and our neighbors, eliminate bird feeders, outdoor pet food sitting around, and setting out garbage cans the night before collection, bears might walk through our yard, maybe try a car door or two, but will likely go back to where they are at home and belong.

Ashley stressed that bears do not belong in our backyard, even though they were here long before we moved in. Just beyond our city development, there are thousands of acres of forest for the bears to enjoy—but our urban bears have figured out how to live the good life, getting big time calories with far less effort than roaming the wilderness to find nuts, berries, and grubs. 

Ashley's advice is clear, "Make the bears feel unwelcome on your property. Eliminate all food sources. Keep letting them know they're not wanted here. Make lots of noise, scare them away. Don't encourage them in any way to hang around because it's not safe for you or them. Help them remember they belong in the wild." 

One subject of discussion concerned unleashed dogs on hiking trails. Several residents in Haw Creek have recently had traumatic experiences while hiking with their leashed dogs who were attacked by bears that were chased by unleashed dogs. The East Asheville Bull Mountain area seems to be enough of a problem for the Park Service to have closed the trails for the time being. Ashley reminded everyone that unleashed dogs are not just a major safety issue for hikers, their pets, and bears, but that there are clear and strict ordinances in place that state pets must be leashed on all public trails. We should all abide by the law and help avoid scary events, both in our neighborhoods and on local hiking trails.

Responding to a question from the audience, Ashley said that NCWRC will not relocate or rehabilitate bears in cases of problematic interactions with people (breaking into homes for food, attacking pets or people when threatened), but may have to capture and euthanize them (with the exception of cubs). This is why it’s so important to discourage bears from becoming “comfortable” with our environment. Let’s all do our part to make sure we and the bears that inhabit our Haw Creek neighborhood remain safe.

For more information, safety tips, and resources go to the BearWise website at https://bearwise.org.

Two easy-to-use composting bins have been installed at the East Asheville Public Library. It’s easy to register online using this registration link and once you’ve registered you will receive the padlock code and be able to drop off your kitchen food scraps at any time. You can also pick up a free countertop composting bin at the library desk, while supplies last. 

Our increased bear population has influenced many of us to give up backyard composting. Having a bear-secure composting station in our neighborhood makes it easy to keep kitchen waste out of our landfill where it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, turning it into rich compost instead (aka "black gold").

The bin shelters are located near the basketball court and consist of two small top-lift sheds that contain two bins each. It’s easy to use: 1) unlock the padlock with the code you get when you register, 2) lift the wooden lid and dump your food scraps in the green bins, and 3) close the lid, lock the padlock, and scramble the passcode.

To learn more about the Asheville City and Buncombe County Food Scrap Drop Off Pilot Program check out the City of Asheville website.

HCCA supports this opportunity to save landfill space, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and contribute to high quality compost production. We encourage you to participate and help spread the word!

City of Asheville Capital Projects Director Jade Dundas reports further construction delays on a new 4,000 foot sidewalk in Haw Creek due to staff vacancies, design review, and right of way acquisition. "We are continuing to work diligently to advance all projects with the commitment to have them all bid and awarded by the Fall bond deadline," says Dundas in an April 25 update. Following is an image from a presentation that he included in a recent City Council update to show progress on this and other projects.

Also included is a map showing the sidewalk location, which will run between Beverly and Bell roads–connecting two schools, the ballfields and pool, our commercial district, plus Haw Creek Park, the library and Tunnel Road–enabling residents to walk safely between these destinations.

November 2023 is the seven-year deadline by which all projects approved in the 2016 bond referendum must be underway.

On Earth Day, a dedicated group of volunteers spent their morning removing vines from around trees and brush from along the trails at Haw Creek Park. They deserve kudos for working in the rain to reduce the ivy that is strangling so many of our trees. HCCA appreciates their commitment to improving our local park.

A small group of HCCA volunteers cleared a path to connect the new Masters Park parking lot and the park trail head on Maple Drive. The new 90 foot path is lined with stones and logs, and required transplanting two species of orchids away from the path. This path provides a safe passage for hikers, who can now avoid walking on Maple Drive.

The City of Asheville will complete a footbridge over a small culvert to enable hikers to avoid a mud pit after a heavy rain. HCCA is working with the City to provide new signage and a kiosk.

The City of Asheville is considering instituting a ban on single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam takeout containers. The City has published a plastic reduction survey and invited all community members to provide feedback before the April 30 deadline. HCCA supports this ban and encourages residents to take this short survey to help inform next steps and recommended actions. 

Please use this opportunity to make your voice heard by completing the survey at https://publicinput.com/a7556. Background information is available at https://www.ashevillenc.gov/projects/single-use-plastic-reduction/. 

HCCA hosted a special program last October that covered this topic and other important environmental issues related to protecting Haw Creek’s watershed. Anna Alsobrook, Watershed Outreach Coordinator at MountainTrue, discussed this proposed single-use plastic ban.

Water quality testing concludes that microplastic pollution is widespread throughout the French Broad River Basin and other WNC waterways. MountainTrue is working to stop plastic pollution at its source and implement a single-use plastic ban in Buncombe County. We can and should enact legislation at the local level to limit single-use plastics before they end up as litter and microplastic pollution in our rivers, lakes, and streams.

This plastic reduction survey is an important step in getting a plastic bag and Styrofoam take-out container ban through the City Council.