03/19/2025
Friends & Neighbors,
When we began our fight to Stop the Bluffs more than four years ago, we were told that there was nothing we could do. If developers wanted to jam an extra 10,000 car trips per day through a narrow residential street without proper fire access routes, we’d have to live with it. If developers wanted to raze an intact urban forest and dump millions of gallons of toxic runoff into the French Broad River, we’d have to accept it. If developers wanted to cram convoys of logging trucks through a community of teachers, veterans, caregivers and other essential workers for up to 8 years, we’d just have to cope.
“But the Bluffs is too big and in the wrong spot,” you said as you joined our fight. “It endangers children and will be an assault on homes that people worked all their lives to create. Could we somehow save that forest instead?”
You organized with strangers over Zoom during a pandemic, wrote letters to editors, put signs in your yards, talked to reporters, stirred up 'good trouble', ran for public office, and made donations, large and small, to Stop the Bluffs. You never gave up--even when some scoffed at your audacious idea.
Today, I’m pleased to say that YOU DID STOP THE BLUFFS AND SAVE A FOREST. The 83-acre tract adjoining Richmond Hill Park has been purchased by Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy and will remain a forest forever.
Please be on the lookout for an official press release from SAHC. Until then, I hope this news encourages you to keep speaking out. Community matters. And so does your voice.
In gratitude,
Robert McGee
On behalf of Richmond Hill and River Rescue
WE WON!
