Thanks to the strong interest to live in Wake County and the Triangle, Wake County west of Route 540 has seen outstanding housing growth over the past few years. It feels like every week, a new housing project begins: a farm or undeveloped area is purchased, trees are felled, roads are paved, houses are built, and new residents move in.

While we warmly welcome our new neighbors and hope they find the same happiness here that we have, county services, particularly schools, are not keeping pace with the growth, and we are not aware of many plans to alleviate this squeeze. Nearly all schools in our area of the county are capped, yet nearly every new home is being filled by another family with school-aged children. Many children in our neighborhood must board buses at 5:45am and spend upwards of 3 hours a day getting to and from school. That drag on our children's time is not the experience families expect or deserve when choosing to live in a county known for its department of education, and is destined to worsen as new residents join us each week.

At recent local government meetings, we've been told that housing developers are not required to incorporate schools and public services into their development plans, we presume because it would deter growth. However, record home price appreciation and housing developer profits indicate that now is exactly the time to require these developers contribute more substantially to the communities they are expanding and profiting from. Even without this change, we would like to see tangible signs and plans that new schools and services are an emergency priority to keep pace with the growing housing stock and tax base.