FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Six years ago, Dan and Ashley Culliton bought and then restored a large, old, deteriorating house because they wanted to live in Haymount, one of Fayetteville’s most historic neighborhoods not far from downtown.
The couple found the neighborhood’s mix of bungalows, churches and single-family homes with wide porches and detached garages unique. The neighborhood’s large, mature trees, older street patterns and parks charmed them, too.
But about three years ago, the two, along with many of their neighbors on Oakridge Avenue, were outraged when a developer tore down a three-story, 4,500-square-foot home that had been built around 1910. Since then, two of five planned houses on the 1.5-acre site have been built, and both remain on the market.
Dan Culliton, a 46-year-old chiropractor, said he thinks he knows why the new homes haven’t sold more quickly.
“New construction in Haymount is the worst real estate market in Fayetteville,” said Culliton, who is the chairman of the Fayetteville Planning Commission.
People come to Haymount, he said, for its charm and uniqueness.
But the neighborhood continues to face outside pressure for change - from builders, from disasters and from a proposal gaining momentum to build a $65 million civil war history center.
A fire last spring destroyed the Haymont Grill & Steak House, leaving a boarded building in the community’s commercial district. The family-owned restaurant dated to 1946, and its neon rooftop sign - with the misspelled “Hamont” - is a neighborhood landmark.
Last year, the City Council unanimously rejected a proposal to convert a 159-year-old mansion called Fair Oaks on Morganton Road in Haymount into a private school.
With those recent developments in mind, the city of Fayetteville’s Planning Division last fall undertook a fresh study of an old issue of preserving the character of Haymount, and added new areas of interest:
The study will recommend ways to make Haymount’s commercial “downtown” - near such institutions as the post office and the Cape Fear Regional Theatre - more walkable, safer for pedestrians and more attractive with decorative brick pavers, benches and trees along the sidewalks.
The main arteries in the study area converge at Hay Street, with some of the traffic merely passing through the community. Planners want to slow it down and encourage cut-through drivers to use different routes.
If the N.C. Civil War History Center is built on the historic Fayetteville Arsenal site four blocks from the theater, the city would like to entice visitors to venture into Haymount’s commercial district or downtown during their museum trip.
Eloise Sahlstrom, the urban designer in the city’s planning office leading the study, said the City Council a few years ago ordered new comprehensive plans for various areas of town susceptible to change. Last year’s completion of the river study and overlay district was the beginning of such efforts, she said. The city is now focusing on Haymount, as well as the mostly undeveloped land around the Veterans Affairs Health Care Center that opened in late 2015 on Raeford Road near Lake Rim.
“There are a lot of stresses on this area,” Sahlstrom said of Haymount. “The neighborhood character is highly desirable, so it’s a good time to look how we can leverage that.”
Two public meetings were held last fall at Haymount churches, and another one will be scheduled this spring. The city hopes to wrap up the study’s recommendations by the summer.
The study area stretches from Terry Sanford High School on the west to Haymount Hill. It’s bounded by Bragg Boulevard to the north and the residential, three-lane portion of Raeford Road to the south.
In Haymount’s commercial core, Hay Street splits into two one-way streets - Fort Bragg and Morganton roads, where older buildings nudge the roadway and parking is scarce. The Haymont Grill and a collection of other buildings are on an island formed by the split; at the tip is Smitty’s Cleaners, where careless drivers in the past have crashed into the building.
At the Hamont Barber Shop, Donnie Barefoot was clipping the hair of a customer relaxing in one of the green chairs one morning last week. Sunshine shone through the storefront windows, and a radio was tuned to a soft contemporary station.
Barefoot, a barber for the past 58 years, said the fire has reduced traffic coming to Haymount but not the speeding. Police run radar on the two one-way streets where the limit is 25 mph.
“Police have been working on that pretty good,” Barefoot said.
His customer, Scott Burgess, 66, is a retired law enforcement officer who moved to Haymount with his wife three decades ago. They found a house on Greenland Drive that was affordable, a fixer-upper.
“We put a lot of sweat equity into it,” he said.
Burgess said he likes Haymount “as it is.”
“It’s kind of small and intimate,” he said.
It’s the neighborhood’s unique character that led Katina Guzman and her husband two years ago to open the Runner’s Spot, which sells shoes and other apparel, in a building next to the Latitude 35 Bar & Grill and the theater. Last year, she formed the Haymount Business Alliance to help tackle issues such as parking and curb appeal.
“So, there are many issues that need to be addressed,” she said. “I really think it could be great and more attractive.”
Sahlstrom said the city would want to preserve the urban character of the commercial area, which she has dubbed “uptown” because of its proximity to the city center down the hill.
Councilman Bobby Hurst, who lives in Haymount and has attended the study meetings, said he likes the concept of slowing down traffic. An idea shown at the November meeting would convert the one-way streets, which have two lanes each, around the grill into one lane, to make room for wider sidewalks, bicycle lanes and additional parking.
“And make it more of a marketplace, like you find in some of the big cities,” Hurst said.
The status of the Haymont Grill is unclear. The grill’s owner, Pete Skenteris, said last week he was still waiting on the insurance company to decide what to do about the building. The city has said he could rebuild as before without, for instance, having to meet modern setback distances to the road, because of the unique location.
One potential thorny idea in the study, according to Sahlstrom, will be whether to implement a Neighborhood Conservation District in some residential areas of Haymount. The district is defined in the city’s Unified Development Ordinance but has never been used.
Sahlstrom said such a district differs from the downtown historic district, where property owners cannot make any exterior changes to their buildings without the city’s permission. With a conservation district, the city would require new homes to conform with the scale and distance set from the road as their neighbors. The city could not, however, dictate the style of construction in the district, or prevent someone from tearing down a building.
“There has been a lot of interest in this,” Sahlstrom said of two Haymount meetings last fall.
She said they’re popular in Raleigh, which has more than a dozen Neighborhood Conservation Districts.
Dan Culliton, the Oakridge Avenue homeowner who leads the Fayetteville planning board, said many of his neighbors would support it, but he acknowledged there are a lot of diverse interests in Haymount and the idea could be controversial. The intent, he said, is not to restrict landowners.
“But what we do want is some compatibility,” he said. “We don’t want a house that doesn’t fit in the neighborhood.”
When developer Gary Tierney demolished a large house about three years ago on Oakridge Avenue, neighbors feared he would build apartments on the land. It’s zoned for multi-family. Instead, he has developed the lot for five houses. Two have been built; they are on the market for $349,400 and $388,500.
Ken Turner, the real estate agent representing the new development, said new construction has been going up in Haymount since he was a boy 60 years ago.
“There is a functional obsolescence to housing at some point, regardless of its location,” Turner said. “In general, why would you not want to improve the area, if it needs improvement?”
City Councilman Kirk deViere, who lives on Oakridge Avenue, described the Haymount study as a “tool in the tool box.”
“And maybe we’ll use parts of it and not use other parts,” deViere said.
He acknowledged the uproar over the Oakridge Avenue house that was razed.
“Again, it’s important as new homes are built that they keep the character of the neighborhood,” he said.
DeViere said some better planning is needed in Haymount’s commercial area, where throngs of people cross to see a play.
“I can’t believe we haven’t had an incident there,” he said. “I definitely think we have to look at pedestrian safety.”
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