Hidden Valley has something nobody can take — but redrawing maps may risk it
Looking over a community garden in Charlotte’s Hidden Valley neighborhood last week, Charles Robinson’s thoughts turned to the future: in this case, to future harvests of sweet potatoes.
The garden looked primed for spring. Sturdy raised beds are filled with rich soil. A sorting table and sink stand nearby. Benches line the bases of old oak trees, ready to provide shade after a day’s work in the dirt.
As he sits, Robinson visualizes the camaraderie that the garden will foster. He thinks about the future often, for the garden and for his neighborhood in general.
Hidden Valley’s present is defined, in many ways, by the uncertainty ahead. Development is encroaching on this predominantly Black neighborhood northeast of uptown, in the area between North Tryon Street and West Sugar Creek Road.
Residents worry that gentrification — including new apartment buildings and townhouses — will dilute the neighborhood’s character, and ultimately push older, Black residents out.
The neighborhood’s identity has been undermined in the past, characterized as dangerous or unstable. News stories and public figures talking about violence and gang activity, some residents say, has been overblown and caused long-lasting harm.
The neighborhood came into the city’s spotlight again recently through redistricting, the once-a-decade process where city officials redraw election maps to account for localized population changes.
Under a new map that could be approved by City Council as soon as Monday, Hidden Valley would be moved from District 4 to District 1 — from a district that reliably elects Black candidates to one that reliably elects white ones.
A lawsuit has been filed in response, brought by two people, one of whom lives in Hidden Valley and is planning a bid for City Council. Other residents have independently spoken out against the plan, saying it would dilute their voting power.
Those chiefly in charge of redrawing council seat boundaries maintain they don’t want to disenfranchise any voter, and that proposed maps meet the legal requirements of the redistricting process. City Council member Renee’ Johnson, who represents Hidden Valley, said she could not comment due to the ongoing lawsuit. Greg Phipps, who is still on the council and was originally elected to represent District 4, did not return an email from the Observer last week. Patrick Baker, the city attorney, declined to comment about the lawsuit in time for this story.
Residents who talked with the Observer in recent days say redistricting comes after years of degraded trust between the neighborhood and City Hall.
Here, neighborhood activists and organizers take charge when there’s a problem — from community events and charitable drives to speaking out against development that would change the character of Hidden Valley.
At a meeting of the Hidden Valley Community Association this week, topics ranged from redistricting and Thanksgiving dinner donations to how to get speed bumps along some neighborhood roads.
“They never have given up over there,” said Patrick Matthews, the captain of CMPD’s North Tryon Division, which includes Hidden Valley. “They know that what they have is far more special than how it’s being portrayed.”
Looking back
Prior to the early 1970s, Hidden Valley was predominantly white, according to a documentary produced by Barbara Pinson Lash, a researcher UNCC’s Charlotte Action Research Project.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black residents began moving in, including some who had been displaced elsewhere in the city. Many families moved there in the years after the razing of the Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1960s, Robinson said, making it something of a refuge for middle and upper-middle class Black families.
As Black people moved in, white people moved out, and Hidden Valley became one of the more politically prominent Black neighborhoods in Charlotte. Today, Hidden Valley and some of the surrounding area is about 50% Black, 39% Hispanic and 6% white, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. (Census tracts do not line up exactly with neighborhood boundaries.)
But it’s changed dramatically since many current residents first moved there.
When Saundra Jackson moved to an apartment complex nearby, in 1984, the portion of West Sugar Creek Road that borders Hidden Valley was two lanes rather than four, she said. There was also a Winn-Dixie grocery store nearby, a movie theater, and a library in Tryon Mall.
“It was nice and peaceful,” she said.
In many ways it still is. Jackson said she knows many of the people on her street because they’ve all lived there for decades. Generally speaking, it’s quiet, and many homes have generous yard space. Even as the area has changed, many residents have kept close relationships with their neighbors.
One of Jackson’s primary concerns is that as businesses have moved out, like those at Tryon Mall, there has been little to replace them. Along Sugar Creek, what were plots of undeveloped woods are now motels and car washes and fast food restaurants, but not the kinds of businesses that supported the quality of life that people in Hidden Valley enjoyed when they first moved there.
Towering apartment complexes and new homes have also been erected along and within Hidden Valley’s borders. Jackson, among others, said the buildings and the traffic they bring threaten the character of the neighborhood — one that residents have for years fought to protect.
“We like the fact that we are an independent group,” Jackson said. “We may be different from other communities, but we are the largest … predominantly Black neighborhood left in Charlotte. We just don’t want to tear that up yet.”
Battling a reputation of crime
In speaking about the history of Hidden Valley, many residents will quickly bring up the Hidden Valley Kings.
The gang, which CMPD officials have said is mostly dissolved, undoubtedly left its mark on the neighborhood — whether through actual criminal activity or through the public perception of it.
Even when the Kings were at their most prominent, in the early and mid-aughts, neighbors in Hidden Valley gave differing reports on just how much of a public danger they actually posed. The city, though, cracked down hard.
By 2003, the gang was thought to be the largest in Charlotte, according to newspaper clips from the time. Police documented 125 members and believed there were four times as many in total. In 2005, a rolling shoot-out along North Tryon Street left one dead and turned heads at City Hall.
Dozens were arrested in sting operations over the following years. During a sentencing hearing for some members in 2008, U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney called the Kings “a group of local terrorists.”
In 2013, CMPD secured an injunction that prevented alleged members of the gang from gathering together in any way — even taking car rides together. By 2016, police claimed the gang had been reduced to a shadow of its former self.
Robinson said the lore of the Kings was larger than the reality, and that the story landed Hidden Valley a long-lasting reputation that it does not deserve.
Even today, many crimes that appear to happen in Hidden Valley on CMPD crime sheets actually happen outside of the neighborhood, said Matthews, the police captain. Many aggravated assaults, for example, that appear on CMPD crime sheets actually happen along Sugar Creek near the I-85 corridor.
“Do we have crime in Hidden Valley? Yes, we do, but we also have crime in Ballantyne,” he said. “There’s a lot more to the numbers than just the numbers. They don’t tell the whole story.”
During the community meeting this week, residents asked a police officer what could be done about drug dealing and prostitution at motels near, but not in, Hidden Valley. Some of those criminal activities have made shedding the reputation as a dangerous neighborhood more difficult.
“I honestly believe Hidden Valley is a victim of where they’re located,” Matthews said. “There’s a lot of grassroots in that neighborhood, there’s a lot of history in that neighborhood.”
Robinson said he’s seen little action from City Hall when it comes to curbing drug dealing and prostitution along Sugar Creek, let alone interest in how it impacts people in neighboring Hidden Valley.
“None of that is being considered,” he said.
Matthews said that arresting many of the people committing crimes in that corridor does little to solve the problem. In many cases, the accused are out of jail before officers can even finish their paperwork. He said he hopes the city would provide more funding for programs like drug rehabilitation and outreach, to get to the root of why people turn to those crimes in the first place.
As the city eyes its new elections map, residents worry that their chances of fixing such problems will fall even lower.
One potential map that could be approved by City Council would make very few changes citywide with boundary lines and keep Hidden Valley in District 4. But it does not account for future growth in each district, and would likely lead to unbalanced populations between districts within a few years, which has made it less popular among elected leaders.
The map that received unanimous support from the Redistricting Ad Hoc Committee would move the two voting precincts that make up Hidden Valley, along with 14 other precincts.
While thousands of voters would be moved under that plan, those in Hidden Valley have been the most vocal — a reflection of the high stakes that the neighborhood sees for its future.
‘Something that other people want’
What brings many Hidden Valley residents the most concern is reflected by what the police receive the most complaints about: speeding.
Speeding and a general disregarding of traffic laws, some residents said, has been fueled by development that has not been adequately planned for.
The apartments in particular provide dense housing with more residents living on certain blocks (although Hidden Valley was one of the few areas of Charlotte to see a decline in overall population over the past decade). That new, localized traffic has spilled onto neighborhood streets without speed bumps, leaving people free to drive recklessly.
Additionally, people coming off Sugar Creek and I-85 sometimes use the neighborhood for pleasure cruising or to avoid the main road. People speed frequently, and some residents are afraid to let their grandchildren play outside the way they used to, Robinson said.
For others, the development is even more personal.
Along some blocks, apartment buildings have been erected directly behind older homes. What were private and quiet back yards are no longer so comfortable. That, combined with climbing property taxes and the loss of valuable local businesses, has left many residents concerned about what’s next.
“It’s a shame that they are making way for everything new and pushing out everybody old,” Marjorie Parker, who lives in Hidden Valley, said during a community meeting this week.
Charlene Henderson, who helped file the redistricting lawsuit and is running for City Council, said the neighborhood can feel like “a free for all” for developers.
“For them it’s a jewel,” she said while walking through a section of Hidden Valley that has, so far, remained relatively untouched by development. “These people have something that other people want.”
The redistricting plan, many people in Hidden Valley believe, is bad in and of itself, but it also comes after years of residents trying to reverse the idea that their neighborhood is dangerous or that it can be transformed against their will. All the while, many feel, their voices have been ignored.
“Our residents almost feel defenseless, and that’s a bad place to put us — up against a wall,” Robinson said. “It seems like our voice doesn’t matter. If it does, they have to show us differently. That means coming in and having a conversation with an educated group of folk about what’s going to happen to the community.”
In the meantime, there’s no idle time for those who call Hidden Valley home.
During the community meeting this week, residents spoke passionately about what to do about development, what to do about crime on Sugar Creek, what to do about speed bumps.
Then there was the matter of Thanksgiving turkeys. They wanted everyone in the neighborhood to have a proper holiday feast.
“How many do you need,” Robinson asked.
Gavin Off contributed research to this story.
This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 11:19 AM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported Hidden Valley’s racial and ethnic makeup.
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