This page provides an overview of Town of Cary planning efforts to the southeast.
Utility Services Agreement with Holly Springs
State law allows towns to establish annexation boundaries to avoid conflict and confusion over which town might annex a particular area. No annexation occurs automatically, and the boundary does not necessarily mean that a town can, or will, annex all land on its side.
Cary and Holly Springs are arranging agreement on such a boundary setting out where the towns might grow over time. Cary could explore annexing and providing urban services north and east of the boundary. Holly Springs could do so south and west. Cary has similar agreements with other jurisdictions, including Raleigh and Apex.
Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction
North Carolina law gives cities and towns authority to regulate development certain distances beyond their boundaries with the approval of county commissioners. The purpose is to avoid a mix of development standards - streets and water and sewer lines, for example - that could lead to costly upgrading that taxpayers would have to bear.
Cary is seeking this authority, called extra-territorial jurisdiction or ETJ, for the area generally north of Middle Creek between Stephenson Road on the west and Bell's Lake Road on the east. Above 1010 Road, the eastern boundary follows Holly Springs Road.
The ETJ request reflects the boundary agreement that Cary and Holly Springs negotiated.
Southeast Gateway Plan
The Southeast Gateway Plan
is a land use plan that was adopted in 1998 for
portions of the Walnut Street corridor and the vicinity of Crossroads
Plaza
shopping center. It covers land that is with Cary Town limits or the
Town's
extra-territorial jurisdiction. The
area extends from Buck Jones Road
southward to just north and east of Cary Parkway and includes Wellington
Park and Swift Creek shopping centers.
Traffic congestion has prompted
an update of the plan, which is scheduled
for completion in spring 2004.
The update includes assessing how various land use scenarios would affect
traffic and determining how land uses in the 1998 plan should be changed.