CARY - Bartley Community Park would've been a lush 51-acre green space, with paved trails, a children's playground and Cary's second dog park. But work on the fully-designed park, planned for the corner of Penny and Holly Springs Road, is over for now.

The park was among the $89 million in construction projects that the town decided to delay or scrap. The town plans to delay 19 projects and stop work on 39 others, including some improvements to parks and roads to weather the recession and save taxpayers' money. The town will continue work on 326 projects worth $413 million.

"Like every other town, Cary is working hard to tighten our belts and live within our means," Councilman Don Frantz said. "Given the economy and lack of revenue, we can't do everything that we would like to do."

The Town Council approved the brick-and-mortar adjustments on Dec. 15. Officials said the new priorities will keep the most critical projects moving forward while limiting debt and keeping taxes as low as possible.

"If we went through with all of these projects, we would see a large tax increase," Frantz said.

Cary has experienced a drop in sales-tax revenues during the past two years, including an estimated 23 percent decline in sales-tax revenue this fiscal year.

Building activity is also down, and the decline has slowed tax growth. The town now has $13 million, or 10 percent, less tax income than expected.

The town's 384 capital projects now fall in three categories: continue, delay, or postpone indefinitely. For delayed projects, such as fixing the driveway of the fire station on High House Road, the town won't spend new money unless the Town Council approves. Postponed projects are closed, and appropriated money will move to active projects.

Closed projects, such as the widening of Holly Springs Road from Cary Parkway to Tryon Road, can be reconsidered when the town puts together its budget.

Town Manager Ben Shivar said projects were reviewed on the basis of several criteria. If the construction was important to public safety, or came with outside funding, such as connecting trails on Black Creek Greenway, the project was likely favored. Projects that already had a significant amount of work accomplished, like ongoing sidewalk improvements, were also favored. "Setting priorities right now was the right thing to do," he said.

Be he said the 39 closed projects are still important.

"These are projects that have already been recommended and approved," he said. "At some point ... we would like to add back those projects, but it depends on how quickly or strongly our revenues will recover."

That means there's still hope for Bartley Community Park, according to Doug McRainey, parks planning manager. "It'll definitely happen," he said. "We've had to review a lot of projects - but this was going to be a beautiful park, and we're committed to making it happen in the future."