A fight is brewing over a development proposal in Huntersville. It calls for a car wash and gas station on Statesville Road near Sam Furr Road, or state Highway 73. It’s the latest project from a north Mecklenburg developer whose past proposals have also aggravated nearby residents. For more, Ashley Fahey of "The Charlotte Ledger" joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: Let’s start with the car wash and gas station. Why are some residents opposed to it?
Ashley Fahey: Yeah, Marshall. I spoke to someone who says the back line of his fence will be about 40 feet from the proposed development. He’s just really concerned about having, basically, a gas station in his backyard. It’s not uncommon for projects to get some amount of resident opposition, whatever kind of development it is. This is going to be quite a large facility. Not only is there a car wash and a gas station, there’s also going to be a 16,000-square-foot detail and lube facility, 18 vacuum bays. He’s worried about noise from the car vacuums. There's just a number of things that are being talked about and opposed by him and about 20 of his neighbors.
Terry: Who's the developer, and why have residents objected to his earlier projects?
Fahey: This guy Jake Palillo. He is of Bi-Part Development, which is a development firm that's been very active in north Mecklenburg. He's proposed a similar project over at the BoatYard in Cornelius, which didn't really seem to make it past a pre-submittal type of meeting. He also has proposed an “English countryside inn” in Cornelius, which did receive some amount of resident opposition, but did ultimately pass the board there. There's been a few other projects that have gone up ahead of rezoning, but the developer tells me a lot of his projects in Huntersville, Cornelius, and north Mecklenburg are by-right, which doesn’t require rezoning, and therefore there’s not as much community input into those. I spoke to him last week and he said, “Listen, they're always mad about something, and I'm going to move forward with the rezoning and follow the rules and see what people have to say.”
Terry: Well, what happens next?
Fahey: The community met with the developer this week. There will be a public hearing this fall. I think one is scheduled for early November, and the town would be voting on it potentially as soon as December. I would expect that the residents will continue to voice their opposition to the commissioners. We'll just see if there's any concessions or if there's any compromises made; that sometimes does happen in a rezoning like this. Hard to know exactly what could happen at this point.
Terry: OK, let’s get a quick update on another Lake Norman project we talked about last week: the likelihood that Wegmans will add a store in Cornelius. You report that Wegmans superfans may have to wait a bit longer before it actually happens. Remind us first where the store might go, and then what’s the latest?
Fahey: They have an agreement with Atrium Health to purchase this site, 18215 Statesville Road. It's really kind of the perfect site for a Wegmans. Got good highway access, good visibility. I was wondering, though, if that site needed a rezoning. The town of Cornelius’ planning director did tell me that it's likely that any future development would require a new conditional rezoning of the property. That process could take a few months to several months. So we’ll have to just keep our eyes peeled to see if Wegmans does in fact file a rezoning for that site. Weggies know that the first Wegmans store will be opening, of course, on October 14 in Ballantyne. I guess my real question is: How soon will folks be out there camping? It might be a couple of days before opening day.
Terry: Finally, today is October 1, for many the official start to spooky season. NoDa is kicking things off by transforming into NoDaWeen, a house-decorating contest. So is someone going to do the Clark Griswold thing, but scary?
Fahey: I actually hope they do, Marshall. NoDa has really kind of had this reputation for going all out on its Halloween decorations. I used to live in the neighborhood, and I used to love walking or running through the neighborhood and seeing how far out some folks get. I’ve already seen some evidence of some creative ones. We had one in our newsletter this week that just showed a very elaborate setup involving skeletons in their front yard. So I’m eager to see what some of the biggest and best ones will be this year.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson & Associates.
