Charlotte water bills going up to pay for lawsuits

If you’re a Charlotte Water customer, you’ll see an increase in your monthly bill starting later this year. The utility is raising rates to help cover $106 million stemming from two lawsuits over fees charged to developers.

For more, we turn now to Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter for our segment BizWorthy.

Marshall Terry: All right, Tony, just how much are folks' bills going to go up?

Tony Mecia: Marshall, it works out to about $0.06 a month or $0.72 a year.

Terry: Okay. So that's really not all that much. What about these lawsuits over fees charged to developers? What kinds of fees are they and are they still being charged?

Mecia: These are fees known as system development fees or capacity fees, which Charlotte Water had charged to developers, say if you were developing a new subdivision, you would pay those fees if you were a developer. It gets a little bit complicated as far as what state law allows cities and utilities to charge.

But a court ruling determined that the city was not doing it properly in accordance with state law, that they were calculating the rates improperly, that they were including future capital expenses, things like that.

Like I say, a little bit complicated. The state law was changed to allow cities to go ahead and charge those, but that did not take effect until a few years ago. And so one of the lawsuits was about the calculation of those fees prior to that. So now Charlotte says it's getting everything back in line, getting it the way it should be.

After losing one case, settling another for $106 million sounds like a lot. But when you spread it out over all the customers, that doesn't wind up being that much money individually. But this is certainly something that you'll see a little bit of an impact there.

Terry: All right. Well, let's move on to Ballantyne now, which is in the midst of a huge redevelopment called Ballantyne Reimagined. You recently spoke with the developer behind the project to get an update on what's going on. What did you find out?

Mecia: Sure. This is Ballantyne Reimagined. We've talked about this a number of times. It's a huge redevelopment going on behind the Ballantyne Hotel on what used to be the golf course. And what's happened is the developer, the owner of the office park and the hotel, Northwood Office, is converting the old golf course into a mix of apartments, retail, restaurants. There are plans for office space, perhaps a grocery store. It's a multi-year thing. They're in the first phase of it right now.

And so we got an update this week on what's going to happen next. They've been doing a bunch of construction there. They're building an amphitheater, a 3500-seat amphitheater that should be open, they say, in the fall. They say they're looking forward to holding concerts and yoga and all sorts of things there. There has been announced the location of Old Mecklenburg Brewery, that should be ready in early 2024. A lot of excitement in Ballantyne about a brewery headed to that part of town. And they say there's going to be eventually 13 bars and restaurants.

They don't have any additional announcements at this time, but those should start coming online pretty soon. So they're making progress. They're moving dirt. Things are coming up out of the ground. They're building roads. There's definitely some progress there.

Terry: And now on the other side of the county, the owner of Huntersville's Birkdale Village has announced it's canceling plans to add a hotel and apartments. What's behind that move?

Mecia: Yeah, Birkdale Village. Really interesting, up in Huntersville. It's been really transforming over the last few years. The old model of a shopping mall with sort of big box retail, it's not maybe as successful as it used to be.

So they've been infusing new retailers in there, smaller little retailers, a lot of them is what's known as a jewel box retail, which is sort of small out parcels. They've announced, for example, a Mexican popsicle place. There have been announcements of a Cheesecake Factory, Foxcroft Wine, a Warby Parker, a bunch of different new retailers coming in there.

The owner of the mall had wanted to put in a hotel and 350 apartments as well as some office space, but some of the nearby residents were concerned about traffic. They're concerned about parking. They're concerned about some of the heights of the building. And so the owner has scaled those back. So it's not adding the apartments, not adding the hotel in an attempt to appease some of the residents.

Terry: So even though, as we've talked about in the past, we're seeing a growth slowdown in the Charlotte area, people are still opposed to new development.

Mecia: I think whenever there's new development, if you live around there, you question: What is this going to mean for me? And if it means more traffic, more people and trouble parking, towering buildings near your neighborhood, I think people are going to raise questions about that.

At the same time, Birkdale Village has been there for about 20 years or so. And I think the argument would be that if you don't keep things fresh, if you don't keep changing things up, injecting new life and new opportunities for development, that the outcome there could be even worse. What you don't want is a decaying mall that's not growing and where stores are closing up. So it's trying to strike that balance.

Terry: All right. Well, let's end this week on pickleball. This spring, Charlotte will host the North Carolina Open for pro pickleball. Tony, what is pickleball exactly?

Mecia: Pickleball is a game played on a court that is similar to tennis, but it is on a smaller court. So you're seeing a lot of tennis courts actually being converted into pickleball courts. It's a little bit faster, quicker-paced game.

Charlotte is going to be a stop on the pro pickleball tour later this year. This is something that started really, I think in retirement communities, but it's since progressed and is now becoming popular among all age groups. You might recall, I think it was last year, the company said it was going to open a series of pickleball courts and cocktail service in the LoSo neighborhood south of South End. And so it's really seemed like it's taking off all over the place.

Terry: All right, Tony, thank you.

Mecia: Thanks, Marshall.

Terry: That's Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business newsletter.

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