For a good little while, the kids of Charleston Village in Apex had a better place to go than into the confines of digital screens.
On a forested parcel of town-owned land adjacent to the greenway that runs through their neighborhood, they built a series of bike jumps and other obstacles out of wood and logs, reinforced with dirt and debris that they’d cleared out of the culverts in a nearby creek.
“The space we created was more than just a place to ride bikes,” said Matthew Ashley, 13, during the public comments session at an Apex Town Council meeting earlier this month. “It was a community. It taught us to ride [trail] features, teamwork, and gave us a safe place with no bullying. It was a source of independence for us because it was accessible right in the neighborhood.”
But last year, complaints started rolling in from a few neighbors about aesthetics, noise, safety, and possible erosion (the property is located in a floodplain). An Apex police officer was called in one day last October—it was a positive interaction, the kids said, and they took a selfie together wearing helmets for bike safety—but several months later, on June 30, signs from town staff were posted warning that the bike jumps were going to be taken apart…