Charles Avenue Park

Charles Avenue Park is a Mecklenburg County neighborhood park in Villa Heights, about a quarter mile east of North Davidson Street. The county publishes very little about it. There is no per-park page on parkandrec.mecknc.gov, and the old mecknc.gov listing that still surfaces in search results now returns a 404.

Dogs are covered by rule rather than by a park page. The county’s Parks & Recreation Facilities Ordinance handles pets by exception. Sec. 26: “It shall be unlawful to have pets in the areas of County parks where pets are expressly prohibited.” Nothing at this park is published as a prohibited area, which leaves the grounds open to dogs by default. Park and Recreation’s own writing runs the same direction, describing the county’s parks and greenways as built for “humans and dogs alike (as long as they’re leashed).”

The leash rule for this park isn’t published. The parks ordinance has no leash section at all, and no park-specific sign language appears anywhere the county has put online. Mecklenburg County’s animal ordinance, Sec. 3-71, requires physical restraint anywhere off your own property, and that’s what applies here. Water isn’t addressed one way or the other.

The county’s parks GIS layer carries the confirmable facts: 800 Charles Avenue, 28205, typed Neighborhood, status Developed, Central district, owned by Mecklenburg County. The size field is empty. A park directory puts it near an acre, which the county doesn’t corroborate. No official amenity list exists, so what’s actually on the ground isn’t something any county page will confirm.

Closing time works by posting. Sec. 31 makes it unlawful “to fail to leave a park prior to the posted closing time for that park,” and that hour lives on a sign at the park, not on a website. The phone number the GIS record carries, 980-314-1002, rings the Central region office rather than anything at the site.

Nearest greenway access is Cordelia Park, about half a mile west on North Davidson, where the Little Sugar Creek Greenway runs south toward Alexander Street Park. Free Range Brewing is a third of a mile off.