Gray's Creek Facts
Paradise Acres meeting · Thursday, July 16, 2026 · 6 PM
Sign the petition
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Independent petition asking the North Carolina Legislature to reject the incorporation · Can't scan? grayscreekfacts.com/petition
Read the facts
grayscreekfacts.com
Every claim sourced to the petitioners' own documents · Six facts on the back of this page
Gray's Creek Facts · Meeting fact sheet
Paradise Acres · July 16, 2026
Six facts to hold in your hand before you sign anything.
Every figure below comes from the petitioners' own published materials or from North Carolina statute. Nothing here is a prediction. Check any of it from your seat: grayscreekfacts.com.
01
The documents don't exist yet.
The petitioners' own Documents page lists the town charter and the feasibility study as "In Preparation" and the boundary map as a "Working Draft." None of the three can be downloaded. Tonight you are being asked to sign onto documents nobody can read.
02
The two budgets don't match.
The committee's Facebook post claims $17M in revenue; grayscreeknc.com claims $13.97M. Their letter promises to "eliminate individual monthly trash bills"; their website budgets a $325-per-household refuse fee. Both can't be true.
03
It is a new property tax.
Incorporation adds a municipal property tax on top of the county tax you already pay — proposed at $0.21 per $100 of value, still marked a "planning estimate." On a $250,000 home that is about $525 a year, before the $325 refuse fee.
04
Fifty square miles is not a small town.
By the petitioners' own count: ~20,000 residents across 50 square miles — Wilmington's footprint with one-sixth its population, eight times the footprint of Hope Mills, and the county's second-largest municipality the day it exists.
05
Enough signatures could mean no vote.
Their letter sets a goal of 50% of registered voters, against a 15% legal minimum. Under N.C.G.S. 120-172, a petition carrying 50% bars the commission from recommending a referendum. The signature drive can replace the election their own timeline promises.
06
A town cannot fix PFAS.
A new municipality cannot regulate PFAS — N.C.G.S. 150B-19.3 preempts local environmental rules stricter than the state's. The $260M+ in committed cleanup funding does not depend on Gray's Creek incorporating.
Is your home even inside the proposed line?
Check your address → grayscreekfacts.com/lookup
§ Sources for every figure on this page
Petitioners' materials: grayscreeknc.com (Documents and Budget pages), the "Dear Resident" letter, and organizing-committee Facebook posts (May–June 2026), archived at grayscreekfacts.com/record. Statute: N.C.G.S. 120-172 (petition and referendum), 150B-19.3 (environmental preemption), Chapter 160A Art. 1 (municipal powers). Population and area: 2020 U.S. Census; Cumberland County GIS; petitioners' own figures (20,000 residents, 50 sq mi). Petition: Change.org, "Stop the Incorporation Attempt of the Grays Creek Community," retrieved July 14, 2026.