Ellerbe Creek is one of the Triangle's nastiest streams, impaired in its ability to support aquatic life and carrying pollutants into the Falls Lake reservoir.

The creek is getting a makeover where it flows through Northgate Park, just north of Interstate 85. But now the makeover is causing problems of its own.

For one thing, it's making Northgate Park less of a park. For another, it's making the park less safe. At least, that's what neighborhood association spokeswoman Page McCullough and others told the City Council last week.

"We have identified areas of concern," she said. "And we want the city staff to help us."

How much the city can help remains to be determined, and it may not be very much. The stream restoration is being done through the state's Ecosystem Enhancement Program, and to get the job done the city was obliged to give the state an easement of 7.5 acres in the 27-acre park.

Restoration began about a year ago, with the stream's course through Northgate Park remodeled from a relatively straight line between high, steep banks, to a zigzag "meander" between banks dug out to gentle slopes that will be planted with stabilizing vegetation. The changes reduce erosion and slows the creek's flow, allowing nature to clean the water before it reaches the creek.

"We want the creek to be clean," McCullough said, but the measures affect park users' ability to walk freely from one area to another. "And now we have these huge easements chewing up our park," she said. "It is very disconcerting.

The easements are "no mow" zones, "severely" diminishing the space for recreation, McCullough said. "Free-play areas for pickup soccer games and for playing ... will be gone." West of the creek, the easements reduce a lawn to a mere corridor along the North-South Greenway.

Planting the easements with more than 2,300 shrubs and seedlings is to start in November. Eventually, according to Paul Wiebke of the city's public-works department, the trees will form a high canopy, shading out understory growth and giving the park an open-woods appearance much like it has today. In between now and then, though, the grasses, bushes and young trees will create a wild visual barrier, like that along Third Fork Creek in Forest Hills Park -- source of considerable neighborhood distress for the past five years.

Blocking the view from the street into the park and from one part of the park to another creates places for drug dealers and muggers to hide, the neighbors contend, and whether or not bad guys are present, people using the park will feel less safe than they do now.

As it is, said Cheryl Shiflett, "You can see across the park from the asphalt greenway trail to the sidewalk, the entire length of the park. These sightlines make people feel comfortable, they make them feel safe, and they are safe because we can see what's going on anywhere."

For a neighborhood suffering a rash of breakins that has gone on for months, security is a sore point. For a neighborhood that has waited year after year after year for promised park improvements, the loss of space and vista is frustrating.

"We're still working with the neighborhood to find out what they can specifically request" in the way of adjustments or concessions from the state, said Sandi Wilbur, the city's project manager for the restoration. In the name of water quality, though, Northgate Parkers may have to live with less play space and security.