Dear Community Partners and Key Stakeholders,
Here are April's key take-aways for Partnership Support, Staying
Informed, Getting Involved and Resources You Can Use!
Partnership Support
The Beaucatcher Greenway project is a very important for our
community and recent misinformation has been spread that may lead to possible
termination or delays of the project. This project is part of the
River-to-Ridge Connector, which would link the French Broad River and River
Arts District to downtown Asheville and Beaucatcher Mountain via a continuous
multi-access corridor that sits very near to Mission Hospital and adjacent to
the most disadvantaged census track in the City of Asheville. This would pass
near or through urban neighborhoods, several apartment complexes, connecting to
30 acres of urban forest overlooking the city above McCormick Field. This
is one part of the Greenways Master Plan which has been passed by City Council,
and has been under development for 20 years. The Beaucatcher greenway was
approved by the city in 2010 and design began in 2013. This would be a
1.25-mile greenway when completed.
From a public health standpoint, as providers and advocates,
please inform yourself on the project and consider giving it your support.
A public comment period on the Beaucatcher Greenway will take
place before the Asheville City Council meeting on April 12th.
To provide comment, you will need to sign-in. Comments are limited to 3 minutes
unless you are commenting on behalf of others present, in which you be will
allowed 10 minutes.
Additional links:
- For
and overview of the Beaucatcher Greenway project http://www.ashevillegreenways.com/beaucatcher#beaucatcher-main
- For
information on the Asheville Greenways Master plan: http://www.ashevillenc.gov/Departments/Transportation/Greenways.aspx
- To
comment on the greenway visit Open City Hall, a new tool to
provide input for the City of Asheville https://www.peakdemocracy.com/portals/239/Forum_687/Issue_3532?cookies=detect
- To express your
support you may sign Buncombe County Parks and Greenways Foundation’s
Petition (note, there is also a petition circulating in the community in
opposition to Beaucatcher): http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/support-beaucatcher-greenway?mailing_id=33574&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=15438387
Get Involved
Spread the word or participate in one of our Talk to Action
meetings this spring. Details are found on the Talk to Action - Spring2016 blog page. We also provide an update of the March 23rd Talk to
Action on Food Security & Safe and Accessible Transportation and
Recreation.
Stay Informed
There is ample evidence that greenways can increase physical
activity and have a positive impact on obesity, chronic disease and mental
health. However, when you google greenways and health benefits you mostly end
up with links to information on any number of City and County greenway systems
with a few bullets on the health benefits or dense academic articles.
Trust for Public Lands has created a comprehensive but very readable
report on the health benefits of parks and greenways.
https://www.tpl.org/sites/default/files/cloud.tpl.org/pubs/benefits_HealthBenefitsReport.pdf
Resources You Can Use
This is a tremendous resource and we encourage you to spend a
few minutes reviewing the contents so you can quickly refer to it for data
needs in the future. We also want to share a link to the press release on the CHA release as well as the coverage of the CHA and CHIP in the
Mountain Xpress.
