Mebane Council to Consider $2.9M Purchase of Two Future Park Properties

Mebane's city council weighed a $2.9 million draw from the general capital reserve fund Tuesday, considering whether to acquire two parcels totaling 82.7 acres for future parks: a 50-acre Orange County tract whose seller wants industrial rezoning in Efland, and 32.7 acres near Highway 119 offered by former councilwoman Jill Auditori for $1.4 million.

The larger acquisition sits entirely across the Alamance County line in western Orange County, along West Ten Road east of Mebane. Its seller, Seven Mile Farm, is separately pursuing annexation and rezoning for light manufacturing on a 500-acre site in Efland, and city staff flagged a recommended condition tying the West Ten Road purchase to that industrial rezoning proposal. That linkage transforms what appears to be a straightforward land buy into a two-part arrangement where Mebane's park investment and a private firm's manufacturing ambitions travel together.

Because the West Ten Road parcel lies outside Mebane's city limits, it would need annexation and rezoning before any park development could proceed. City staff recommended those steps as prerequisites, a safeguard against committing capital to land that could remain stranded across a county line indefinitely.

The Auditori tract, at the intersection of N.C. Highway 119 and Mebane Rogers Road, is closer to home: it falls west of the city's municipal limits but inside the extraterritorial jurisdiction. Its current R-20 zoning permits standard park uses but would require a Special Use Permit for competitive athletic fields, an additional regulatory hurdle that could limit the site's recreational potential depending on what the city ultimately plans to build there.

Both purchases draw from capital reserves rather than a dedicated bond, and neither comes with a funded construction timeline. Staff presented them as opportunistic acquisitions under the Recreation and Parks Comprehensive Master Plan, adopted in March 2024, which anticipates rising demand for green space and athletic facilities as Mebane grows. The logic: buy now before prices rise, and figure out programming later.

That deferred planning carries real costs. For the West Ten Road site, annexation requires coordination with Orange County, a jurisdictional layer that could push any actual park development years into the future. For the Highway 119 parcel, the city would own land it cannot fully program without additional permitting. And for Mebane taxpayers whose capital reserves fund the purchase, the council's core question was whether 82.7 acres of unimproved farmland with no construction plan represents sound public investment or a calculated bet on growth the city has not yet paid to accommodate.