Category: Trust

Apex is a rapidly changing community. As of the 2020 Census, the Asian population in Apex is now the largest minority, and growing faster than any other ethnic group. We need to recognize this trend, welcome them into Apex, and work towards engaging this community in order to best provide them the services and amenities they deserve.

This means a few things. Culturally, we have to look at what festivals and events we fund and put on, in order to make sure we are serving all of Apex.

From a geographic perspective, this also means making sure the areas of town with these growing communities are provided the same services and amenities as the rest of town – this means making sure our police and fire departments are staffed well to serve the growing geographic area, and that our Park’s plan includes new amenities in these areas.

And from a programming perspective, it means we offer classes and recreation opportunities for a diverse population; and provides spaces and resources for teachers from these communities to serve this area as well. We’re building a cricket field this coming year – this is a good start, but not enough.

One of the motivations for moving Apex to a District election system is to give the AAPI community, clustered in the west and especially north west of Apex, an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice in the future.

Our tremendous growth in Apex should not come at the expense of the history, character, or charm of the area.

Indeed, I view our growth and the impact on the surrounding communities as creating a responsibility on the Town’s part to do everything we can to preserve the history of the area. The history of this area is what makes it an interesting place to live.

To that end; since coming on the Council I have been a champion of historic preservation and will continue to do so. This means, when a rezoning or other development proposal comes forward with a historic home or structure, I expect it to be preserved. I strongly support our Apex Historic Marker program to bring the history of Apex, Friendship, and New Hill forward to today. Apex needs to do more to preemptively preserve historic assets, like the Friendship Rosenwald School, before they are lost to time or calamity.

Apex staff and Council should continue to lean on the advice from organizations like Capital Area Preservation and the members of the Apex Historical Society, as well as the advice from long time members of the community, when making impactful decisions.

The CSX switching station, located in downtown Apex, is not ideally situated. It’s location is the cause of frequent backups on Center and Hunter street, in addition to idling trains overnight in the winter significantly hurting the quality of life for our downtown residents.

Apex needs to make a concerted effort to incentivize CSX to relocate out of Apex. The property can then be purchased by the town and repurposed for any number of public uses. The property to the east of the tracks, situated directly between downtown Apex and our town campus, likely environmental incumbered and inappropriate for residential use, would be an ideal location for a future parking deck.

This year the Town of Apex is funding a study to look at alternatives for CSX’s location. I support making this a priority going forward.

I support a significant revisiting of the 2045 Land Use Map (LUM) to designate additional areas as commercial services, light industrial, and related mixed uses.

The reasons for this are numerous: first and foremost, Apex has been a hot spot of residential development these past few years. Unfortunately with increased growth comes increased strain on our infrastructure, including schools, which must be paid for our of our increasingly residential focused tax base.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A revising of the Land Use Map to add more commercial services would both provides jobs and services for a growing community, as well as allow us to shift the tax burden away from our residents.

The current map made sense when it was initially written. It’s time to revisit it.

It’s the job our elected town leaders to communicate the needs and concerns of Apex to every other government agency, at every level. To do otherwise is leaving money on the table. Our elected leaders are our first and best advocates. There are no “lanes” to stay in.

Implement the downtown plan. Get rid of the parallel parking, expand the sidewalks to make additional retail space. Line Salem St with trees. Improve pedestrian safety with bump outs and raised crosswalks.

As mentioned on our “Accomplishments” Page, school capacity discussions are now built into the process for residential developments. This in of itself has been a huge step forward, as the Town Council now is able to consider real data from the school system and make appropriate decisions based on that; be it a denial, delay to the future to allow capacity to catch up, or a possible conversion to a 55+ or commercial use.

I put this here in my on going platform to stress how vital this topic needs to be now and going forward as Apex continues to consider residential developments. It took a long long time for Apex to build itself into a corner, a problem then made worse by the state’s decision to limit school capacity for elementary schools – the so call “class sized chaos” of 2017 – which, while well intended, had the practical effect of bulldozing an entire elementary school in Apex from a capacity perspective and providing no money for additional teachers or schools needed to handle it.

At the current moment, thanks to the collective efforts of WCPSS and Apex, there are multiple schools either under construction, in design and in the plan, or land banked for the future which together will help address the capacity crisis. But we still need to be diligent and insure that going forward any future residential growth matches up with the WCPSS building plan. And we have to be on the look out for additional curve balls from the state, like a proposal this year to further limit class sizes, and adjust appropriately.

This situation is another motivating factor for my proposal to pivot the land use map towards commercial.