Pittsboro mayor Cindy Perry was elected for her first term at the same time as Chapel Hill mayor Pam Hemminger. Since 2015, both have been steadily working toward making their respective towns the best they can be.

“Pam [Hemminger] and I have been trying to get together for the last three years,” said Perry in an interview with WCHL’s Aaron Keck and Aaron Hall. “When we left new mayors school, we said, ‘oh, we’re going to go and have lunch, or we’re going to do this or that.’ What we have been able to do is to have a meeting of the minds on water quality issues.”

Those water quality issues stem from the scaling up of Chatham Park development across over 7,000 acres on the east side of Pittsboro. The Chatham Park Development will house roughly 22,000 residential units and is positioned to offer around 22 million square feet of commercial and industrial space. With a significant influx of population poised to swell Pittsboro into a Cary competitor from a relatively small Chatham County town, natural resources and infrastructure maintenance are key to continued success.

“We’re the first community,” said Perry. “Pittsboro is the first community south of the big industrial communities in Greensboro and Burlington. We’re the first community that actually drinks out of the Haw River. Pam has been following all of that, and she recognizes that we have a tremendous amount to do looking at water as a resource. Looking at the concept of ‘one water,’ which she’s really leading the way on.”

Perry continues, “We used to live in our own silos, and now we’re finding that the interconnectivity of infrastructure and, certainly on the water issue, is a very important thing.”

Chatham Park isn’t popping into existence overnight, however. Development has begun but, according to Perry, the timeframe to completion is anywhere from 30 to 50 years. That’s plenty of time for Pittsboro – and Chatham County – to change dramatically.

“When I first came to Pittsboro — back in the late sixties, early seventies — about 85 percent of our people were driving out of town every day to go to work, either in RTP or Chapel Hill,” said Perry. “Now it’s down to 65 percent. If we get these clean tech jobs and the kind of response from big tech industries that would be looking to move to a gentle and sweet community like Pittsboro, then we’ll be able to really employ our own base. And that will be a tremendous asset.”

According to Perry, a recent inventory from a Chatham-based climate change committee found that roughly 70 percent of Chatham’s carbon footprint is caused by cars driven by people commuting out of the county. Keeping more of those workers closer to home and shortening commutes would go hand-in-hand with other environmentally friendly initiatives in Pittsboro.

“We’re working on plastic bags at the grocery stores,” said Perry. “We’re working on a switching over a street lights to LED. Duke power is working with us, and all the new street lights that are going in are LED. Although there’s a really lovely warm feeling about those amber lights that are up there, they consume twice as much energy as the LEDs. And we should see our Duke Power bill diminished in such a way that will be able to pay for those lights in probably five years.”

As Chatham continues to change and Pittsboro continues to grow, Perry’s position as mayor allows her to work with groups, such as Main Street Pittsboro, to keep the unique vibe of the town intact.

“When all the residents come to Chatham Park, we think that they’ll enjoy coming to Pittsboro,” said Perry. “There’ll be a trolley car that we’ll provide, and it would come from the Chatham Park subdivision and down into the community and offer another piece of quaintness.”

Now seven years in the making and with at least a couple decades before completion, Chatham Park has been – and will continue to be – a hot-button issue for Pittsboro residents. The development is sure to change life in Chatham County, but citizens can take heart in knowing that no decision in Pittsboro is made lightly.

“I used to think, being an attorney, that the wheels of justice ground very slowly,” said Perry. “But I must tell you that they grind even slower when it comes to municipal government. It’s taken me three years to get three benches placed along the sidewalk out East Street.”

You can listen to the full conversation between Aaron Keck, Cindy Perry and Aaron Hall below, and find more Chatham County news and happenings here.