Voters will decide how Holly Springs will manage its growth Nov. 3 as residents cast ballots for town mayor and three council members. Some candidates want continued growth; others want to stop or slow approval of new residential construction. Those for slowing or stopping growth say their strategy will allow time for improving roads and lessening school crowding. Those for continued growth say hampering residential growth not only will worsen road congestion while having no affect on school crowding but also will deter businesses from locating to town.

Candidates for continued growth are mayoral candidates Dick Sears (incumbent) and David (BirdDawg) Austin, and council member candidates Vinnie D’Agostino, James (Jimmy) Cobb, Chet VanFossen (incumbent) and Linda Hunt Williams.

Candidates for stopping or slowing growth are mayoral candidate Gerald Holleman and council member candidates Vinnie DeBenedetto (incumbent) and Tracey Goodwin.

Council candidate Ken Henke did not return phone calls to respond to the issue.

Would slowing the town’s growth assist officials in easing Holly Springs’ growing pains? Holly Springs candidates answer differently. Jeff Ulma, director of planning for Cary, worked through a cessation of growth in Cary. A moratorium on growth was placed in Cary for about a year in the early 2000s as the town completed a water treatment facility.

Ulma said he did not know if he could attribute specific results to the growth moratorium but said during that time road congestion did not improve.

“In a metro-regional environment that exists here … you squeeze down here on one end and it ballooned somewhere else,” he said.

The traffic from other growing towns nearby still came through Cary, he said.

Generally, current Holly Springs development practices require builders to widen roads or complete other traffic improvements if needed along the development’s road frontage. To improve roads otherwise, tax money (town, state or federal) is used. As for crowding in schools, candidates on both sides of the growth issue say the solution is to stop bussing students to Holly Springs schools. Sears said 45 percent of students in Holly Springs schools are bussed from out of town.

Ulma said he did not know if school crowding worsened in Cary during the moratorium.

“Those things are bigger than Cary,” he said. “Everything is so regional and interconnected, you can’t isolate it down.

What about commercial development? Ulma said that developers like predictability and can become skeptical toward a community and its attitude toward growth.

“When you throw a wrench in the works … it changes the equilibrium and makes everyone skittish,” he said. “There’s a lot of risk in developing land anyway.”

Holly Springs town staff recently said, as part of a presentation on an economic development survey, that developers said towns must first have a critical mass of people who are potential customers to sustain commercial development.

Holly Springs residential growth has slowed with the economy. New home permits, which hit a high in 2005 at 822 new homes, fell in recent years, dipping to 301 last year. Town staff estimates 185 new home permits will be issued this year.

Should residential growth be slowed or stopped? Would the town’s traffic improve if growth was stopped? Will candidates be able to convince the county to stop bussing students to Holly Springs schools? Will commercial developers still come to Holly Springs if residential growth is stopped? Different candidates give different answers to these questions. Ultimately, voters will decide who they believe has the right answers Nov. 3.