"Right down the street here is High House Road and Cary Parkway. That was gravel when I moved here. There was no road to the left, no road to the right," said Powers, standing outside the Cary Senior Center Thursday afternoon.
Today, the town's population is fast approaching 200,000 residents, with the town putting two bonds on the ballot that could shape how the town looks over the coming decades.
The first measure is a $30 million housing bond, which would help expand housing options, property acquisition, preserve affordable housing supply, provide rehabilitation gap financing for property owners who rent multi-family units, amongst other efforts to ease access to home ownership.
"It's kind of a no-brainer. I actually wish it was slightly larger than this because I really need to think about and work on making Cary more affordable for people who work here. Firefighters, teachers, just regular people like us need to have an affordable place to stay," said resident Mona Singh.
"It only serves to improve the community, which I think in the long run makes it more diverse and more valuable," added Jeff Jefferson.
However, some voters feel there were more effective ways to address population growth.
"I would hope that there is another solution to help people with the housing and everything without raising taxes so much and so quickly," said Sandy Joiner.
"If you constantly are raising the taxes and everything else, the property values to go up and then guess what? It's out of reach for most people," added Powers.
According to Zillow, the median sales price as of August 31st in Cary was $612,000, with home values increasing by 60% over the past five years.
The second bond has garnered far more reaction: a $560 million measure that covers six parks and recreation projects. The projects include $10 million for an Asian Garden Master Plan, $60 million to expand the Cary Tennis Park and add new pickleball courts, $150 million for the Mills Park Community Center in western Cary, $10 million for the Nature Park Master Plan, $300 million for a Sports and Recreation Community Center in the South Hills District, and $30 million towards the Walnut Creek Greenway.
"The Cary Parks and Rec was able to provide (my children) with extracurricular activities, you know, sports, whether it was soccer or softball or baseball. And we need to continue to do that because it gives the kids something to do and they learn a lot of things by participating in sports," said Steve Assaid.
"My son played in the Cary Rec leagues and thought that did a lot for his personal development," added Jefferson.
However, the size and amount of the bond has led some taxpayers to balk.
"Raising taxes too quickly for six different projects. If it was one project, one at a time, maybe raise it a little bit. You know, I can understand that. But when they roll it all into one, I'm not ready for my taxes to go up again so quickly," said Joiner.
"I was concerned about spending. Obviously, we have to pay back these bonds and they get paid back out of property taxes. So I'm looking at the future and also concerned about the fact that our downtown park, which was budgeted in the 2019 bond for $50 million, ended up costing $69 million," added Mary Collins.
Collins created a website, laying out her reasoning why she opposed the measure. Like Joiner, she acknowledged the value of parks and recreation, specifically praising the Mills Park Community Center plan. However, the number of projects in one bond ultimately was a deterrent for Collins.
"I like young people and I want a vibrant community. Problem I have is that we're being basically told (to) build these things in anticipation of the future, but we don't have a prudent budget. We don't have a sound way to pay for them without causing all of the taxpayers, the community of taxpayers here now to have to foot this bill," said Collins.
Assistant Town Manager Danna Widmar says the town has historically put forward individual bond measures which include several projects.
"We do believe that the projects are widespread enough that they appeal to a good majority of our citizens," said Widdmar.
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If both bonds are approved, Cary's property tax rate would increase by nine cents per $100 of assessed property value; of that amount 8.5 cents is from the parks and recreation bond, and half a cent is from the housing bond. The current increase would be three cents in the 2026 calendar year, three more cents in the 2028 calendar year, and three additional cents in the 2030 calendar year. The parks and recreation bond does not cover operating costs, which the town says would likely be paid for through additional property tax increases.
"There's a long history of the projects that are on the parks and rec bond. When you look at the specifics, there's decades-old proposals associated with them, some master plans that go back quite a range of years that have identified these projects. And so really that's the reasoning. It really is kind of moving into this next generation of projects which includes new facilities. As it relates to the housing, we've done a lot of work over the last several years. We approved our Imagine Cary Community Plan in 2017 and then our housing plan in 2021, and that housing plan got much more specific for where we are going, and what we are doing and the development of housing. And so this is just the next logical point of improvement associated with our housing," Widdmar explained.