After years of neglect, Hidden Valley sparks new interest

TROY HULL | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Hidden Valley resident Alvin Woods, who has lived in the north Charlotte neighborhood since the 1970s, has seen a resurgence of interest in rebuilding the community. “We’ve seen the worst of times and now we’re in the process of making it a great place to live again,” he said.

Hidden Valley is in transition.

The north Charlotte neighborhood has attracted interest from developers in recent years who value its proximity to light rail. The community has a longstanding reputation as a hub for crime and has been hobbled by decades of disinterest and neglect by city leaders. It makes for a volatile mix.

Marjorie Parker, a longtime Hidden Valley resident and president of the neighborhood association, is frustrated by a lack of city investment in the area.

“The city has not made good on its promise,” she said.

Parker wants to “clean up” Hidden Valley, highlighting Reagan Drive and Tom Hunter Road to the north as hot spots for crime like drug trafficking, human trafficking, robberies and shootings.

Hidden Valley is one of Charlotte’s biggest developments of single-family homes. It’s bordered by West Sugar Creek Road and North Tryon Street, which have been notorious for crime.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police’s Crime Mapping website reported 32 calls for assistance within a half mile of Hidden Valley Elementary School in a recent four-week span. Earlier this month, three people, including a minor, were shot near the intersection of North Tryon Street and Tom Hunter Road. One person, 22-year-old Derrick Answon Baker, died at the scene.

Hidden Valley was established in 1960 as a middle-class white neighborhood. By the 1970s, Black residents started moving in. It also has historic significance: Charlotte notables like former Mayor Harvey Gantt lived there. However, white families fled, and use of a real-estate strategy known as redlining deemed the neighborhood not suitable for investment.

Gang activity was rampant, which attracted national attention. After a raid where members of the Hidden Valley Kings were arrested, the area was still ignored.

“The area resembles poverty,” said Greg Jackson, CEO of HEAL Charlotte, a neighborhood revitalization nonprofit and leader of a Reagan Drive initiative that brought neighbors together to raise awareness.

Parker believes Charlotte’s Corridors of Opportunity program, launched in 2019, has overlooked Sugar Creek in favor of Derita near University City. COO has dedicated money to security improvements, like more surveillance cameras to local businesses, added a crosswalk, and improving water lines after residents complained of poor water pressure in their homes.

“Crime targets disinvestment,” according to Charlotte’s Sugar Creek Playbook, which allowed gangs to move into the Sugar Creek area. At least seven motels with poor ratings and reviews citing drug trafficking, fighting, poor sanitation and substandard service are located at the I-85 exit to Sugar Creek Road.

The motels are privately owned and remain open by providing housing for the housing insecure. A money-lending business and a plasma center are also in the area.

“We have been working with them since 2019,” Parker said about the corridors program, which is now on its third manager for Sugar Creek. “The needle is not moving.”

Erin Gillespie, strategy and development manager for Corridors of Opportunity, said new investment has been made in Sugar Creek.

“A lot of corridors work has been focused on Sugar Creek,” she said. “Whether it’s housing or it may be transportation investments, it’s still related to that larger safety conversation that’s taking place.” Gillespie added city investment has gone into the burgeoning Sugar Creek Business Association, and business matching grant investments for property owners to upgrade their security measures.

Gillespie said multiple different point people with the COO program are in communication with community members. As the initiative expanded its boundaries, the Sugar Creek Corridor team has expanded to five people with the addition of Tom Hunter Road.

“That may not have been part of our original focus for the corridor playbook, but it’s adjacent and obviously impacts the community,” she said.

In 2022, the HVNA sent a written list of demands addressed to the engagement manager of Corridors of Opportunity, including security officers at the Tom Hunter CATS Lynx Blue Line station, increased police presence, and repurposing the motels into stable housing.

“I want this area to be the same area of my youth when white people lived here,” Parker said. “We want the same benefits that Myers Park of Ballantyne get.”

Alvin Woods, who has lived in Hidden Valley since the 1970s, has seen changes. Many homeowners are seniors, and for a while, houses sat vacant, which attracted people suffering from substance dependence and homelessness. There are also more renters.

Woods also believes that the neighborhood has seen improvements in safety. For example, businesses have offered parking spots in their lots specifically for CMPD officers to park their vehicles. Woods also said the Economy Inn was closed to make way for affordable housing units.

“We’ve seen the worst of times,” he said, “and now we’re in the process of making it a great place to live again.”

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police told The Post two groups of detectives and officers dedicated to investigating, patrolling and monitoring the areas of West Sugar Creek and North Graham, which border Hidden Valley. CMPD also has bike patrols and holds monthly outreach events for the homeless to provide community resources.

“We’ve formed great partnerships with the police department,” Woods said.

Parker, who worked to procure a $2.25 million grant from the city to convert the former Raymont Hotel into a 90-day transitional housing campus for those transient families, insists more can be done to strengthen collaborative efforts between neighbors, government and business interests.

“There needs to be a larger conversation between the community leaders and developers,” she said. “We need to be brought to the table earlier.”

Jackson said the community is focused on more programmatic changes, like substance abuse and mental health counseling over infrastructural changes like businesses and housing that could encourage people to spend money.

“The only people that are coming off that … are people that live there,” he said. “It doesn’t entice anybody to make investment. The city is not about human resources. That’s not what they do.”

Developer Bart Hopper opened the Crossings at NoDa, a rental townhome community near the West Sugar Creek Parkway specifically for its proximity to the revitalized North Davidson area.

“It’s a great location within the city, close proximity to I-85 [and Highway] 49,” in addition to the proximity to light rail, he said.

Jae Ledbetter, whose mother and grandmother have lived in Hidden Valley, says the community needs “more than just money” to solve its problems. The Asian Corner Mall has been replaced with apartments, but that’s all she could think of in terms of investment.

“I thought, ‘oh maybe that’s going to bring more business,’ but it didn’t,” she said.

Ledbetter agrees there has been more investment in other Corridors of Opportunity. She also said policing alone isn’t going to fix the problems.

“These people, they need more opportunity, they need better jobs, they need security, because that’s the only reason they’re in the life of crime,” she said. “They can’t make money any way else except to steal and sell drugs and things like that. If they had more opportunity to have a good life, that’s more capitalism. We gotta solve that first.”

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