To walk through the Beatties Ford Hall with Ronald Ross is to see the battles lost and won, the compromises agreed upon jointly.
In a lot just south of the I-85 interchange sits two Wells Fargo ATMs with a drive-thru lane and a garden. “We tried to get them to build a regular bank branch but they didn’t think that was worth it, I guess,” says Ross.
Three large signs placed along the path leading to the ATMs educate drivers and their passengers about pollution, air quality and how to improve it through actions in one’s everyday life. Ross and other community advocates placed the signs and planted the garden, which they tend to regularly.
The next-door lot sits abandoned. Ross and other community organizers successfully fought plans to build a Popeyes on the property; instead, construction of a medical facility will soon get underway.
Across Gilbert Street, across from the Allegra Westbrooks Regional Library, pillars covered in brown vines await spring, when Carolina Jessamine, Two-row Stonecrop, and Blue Spruce Stonecrop will bloom and complete a beautification task that the Ross advocacy organization’s environmental network has done. continues the city’s Placemaking Grant program.
Beneath the vines is the logo of the historic West End Green District, marking the territory where Ross, veteran network organizer Mattie Marshall and William Hughes, founder of real estate investment firm CGE Venture Group, fought to hold accountable to developers and boost green infrastructure. and educate your neighbors about air pollution.
We stop at the domain just minutes after learning that Ross and his fellow network organizers once managed to delay a near commercial progression. Lakemont Property Investors LLC had filed a rezoning application to pave the way for the progression of “warehouses, warehouses, distribution, manufacturing, offices, and other commercial uses” on a 41-acre site in the Wilson Heights network in the Beatties Ford Road corridor.
As I was preparing to meet Ross at the property, a representative of the developer called me to tell me that after a virtual network assembly where it had been noticed that 40 other people were showing up to oppose the development, and a petition was started through CleanAIRE NC. Collecting more than 150 signatures against, the developer withdrew in December and explored other venues for development. Since the petition was removed just before the holidays, the network had not yet been informed that it was no longer on the agenda.
“I’m thrilled by the lack of a better term,” Ross said with a laugh as we prepared for an interview at Allegra Westbrooks Regional. “Just knowing that we had the network and the network popped up and the developer listened. . . I hope the Wilson Heights network can get what it wants. They’d like to see more housing, a residential detail implemented, that’s what we want in Charlotte.
Ross grew up in the Northwood Estates neighborhood off Beatties Ford Road in Wilson Heights. After living much of her adult life in California, she returned to Charlotte around 2010. While battling smog at his old Pasadena home had made him more aware. of air pollution, his return home brought him to the forefront.
“When I came back to Charlotte and saw her from a different attitude than I saw when I was little, I learned that even walking to and from school, walking through woods, streams, playing with frogs, that doesn’t exist. Already. . . I like to go outside, run, ride motorcycles and that kind of thing. So those are things that we want to implement in our network as well. We don’t have greenways. We don’t have tree canopies. .
One of Ross’s earliest memories of networking dates back to the 1990s, when the citizens of Northwood Estates opposed plans by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) to build a bus parking lot for its transportation branch in the neighborhood.
It was one of 14 CMS transit services in the city, but the citizens of Northwood Estates objected because the street, Northpointe Industrial Boulevard, was already home to a significant concentration of commercial developments, increasing the threat of pollution. Worried at the time, witnessing the fight encouraged him to become more involved in the network’s affairs.
“CMS is trying to put buses on the back of our network, and I know our network has been strong enough for that,” he said. “They didn’t win it, but it stayed with me for a long time. “they were ignored.
In 2016, Ross, Marshall and Hughes partnered with CleanAIRE NC to measure air pollution levels in the Washington Heights, Northwood Estates and Oaklawn Park neighborhoods along the corridor. They were concerned with the lasting effects of not only the nearby industrial development but the the city’s two largest freeways both being built right through or next to each of their historically Black neighborhoods.
CleanAIRE NC, then called Clean Air Carolina, set up three permanent PM2. 5 air tracking sites in neighborhoods and then compared the data to that of wealthier white neighborhoods on Charlotte’s South Side, where business growth was nonexistent and roads had not shrunk communities. in the middle of the 20th century.
Not surprisingly, the data showed higher levels of pollutants in the air in the three West End neighborhoods than in the South and East Charlotte areas.
Ross, Marshall, and Hughes continued the work by creating the historic West End Green District, and continued their work with CleanAIRE NC to conduct painting workshops with local citizens and advocate for greener infrastructure in the West End.
The group advocates for the use of electric vehicles (EVs), helping to bring a PoleVolt electric charging station to the corridor in 2022 and hosting EV events at Northwest School of the Arts to make neighbors more familiar with EVs and their impacts.
In 2024, the organization plans to advocate for more cyclist- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, while working to maintain what’s left of the region’s forest cover.
They will also continue to be concerned about the area’s progress, especially as developers begin to consider spaces like the Beatties Ford Road Lounge as one of Charlotte’s opportunity halls, where citywide investment is encouraged.
Read more: New Beatties Ford Road mural to pay homage to six West End icons
For neighbors like Ronald Ross, it’s vital to keep an eye on the type of investment involved.
“A lot of things have been replaced in our network: a lot of good things and a lot of bad things,” he says. “And things are unfolding, we want to care and have a say in what happens. “People feel left out. Things happen and they’re not worried or engaged, so there’s a lot of skepticism about what’s going on and whether it’s really an advantage for me. Is this an advantage for me or is it an advantage for someone else who enters the network?»
He stresses that he opposes any development, but only proposed projects that take into account long-term residents.
“I don’t need to be noticed, like we don’t need anyone to build anything in our community,” Ross says. “We are looking for progressions and businesses that can provide services that are sorely lacking in our community. as well as companies that are willing to contribute to the economic and social progress of the community, to increase our accessibility to new technologies that are evolving so that we can contribute to the workforce.
“We take the extra initiative to care and voice our opinions,” he continues. “For businesses to come here, we can engage them with our elected officials. We simply need to be at the table.
Become a Nerve Member: Enhance your connections and become a Queen City Nerve member for local journalism for as little as $5 per month. Our journalism network helps you stay informed through a diversity of varied voices.
Email: info@qcnerve. com O (f)(nom)@qcnerve. com
417 East Blvd, Suite 206 Charlotte, NC 28203