Greenspace Rocks a Town
Many of us have been preparing all week for an event that is close to both our homes and hearts. We’re trying to save Greenspace, a space that has been host to many community events - a space where people are encouraged and supported to “Think Globally. Act Locally.” Today’s post is an excerpt from the Carrboro Citizen, our local newspaper. Read on - this is big.
By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer, The Carrboro Citizen
Granted, even in a community as substantially liberal in spirit as Carrboro, “usufruct” is hardly a word around which the general citizenry will likely clamor to rally.
“Usufruct” (according to Webster): “the legal right of using and enjoying the fruits or profits of something belonging to another”; from the Latin usus et fructus, “to use and enjoy.”
Building community, both physical and conceptual, has been the modus operandi at Carrboro Greenspace, a little piece of paradise at 116 Old Pittsboro Road, which now may soon be sold. And as unaccommodating in enunciation and obscure in definition as this word, “usufruct,” may be, the Carrboro Greenspace Collective finds it perfectly appropriate in describing the nature of their work to date. (Back to etymology in a moment.)
Anchored by “Casa Grande” – home for the past year and a half to several members of the Carrboro Greenspace Collective – Carrboro Greenspace is 10.5 acres of mostly densely wooded, dramatically slopped refuge, just a five-minute walk from downtown Carrboro. Casa Grande, says denizen and organizer Sammy Slade, was envisioned as functioning like the Horace Williams House with green sensibilities. Carrboro Greenspace has been host to weddings, art exhibits and a puppeteers’ convention. The property is also home to the ReCYCLEry, a nonprofit community bike workshop (see last week’s Carrboro Citizen), and the Walk-in Tributary Theater, where movies are screened in a swimming pool.
Trouble is, the owners of this property have determined that a change in plans is in order. And so while planning what may be the last event at Carrboro Greenspace, on August 4, the residents of Casa Grande are today packing boxes. They’ve been asked to vacate by the owners, Carolann Stoney and April Morris of Pomona, California.
According to Slade, the owners have said they want to make renovations to the house, which has been on the market now for about a year. The ReCYLCLEry remains for now in operation. But sale of the property seems imminent.
Blame it on usufruct, and its absence of readily apparent commercial viability: There’s no way the Carrboro Greenspace Collective could have raised the funds to purchase the property – not on their own, not with what’s collected via free bike-repair classes and donation-only flicks. Or just blame it on commercial viability: Ten and a half acres pretty much smack in the middle of downtown Carrboro is, obviously, a prime piece of property.
Leave a Reply