Mooresville Commissioners Vote Down Mega Development Plan

MOORESVILLE, NC -- The Mooresville Board of Commissioners has rejected a controversial rezoning measure that would have turned more than 100 acres of pastoral land on the bank of Lake Davidson into high-density residential and commercial development.

The development plan, spearheaded by developer Hinckley Gauvain, would have rezoned a 140-acre tract of land on Highway 115 between Davidson and Mooresville to allow up to 115 single-family homes, up to 300 condominiums, 120 townhomes and up to 300 multi-family apartments, and up to 65,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.

The plan has provoked intense criticism from some area residents who say the scheme to develop the land would create environmental and quality of life problems.

Commissioners at the July 10 meeting, however, voted 4-2 to reject the rezoning request that would have given the development plan the green light. It was a vote that had been delayed a month, after the commission was confronted with intense local opposition to the plan at its June 5 meeting.

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Critics of the development plan have started a petition, which has more than 1,000 signature. The petition asked the town’s board to deny the rezoning application, arguing that the plan is too high density to meet watershed protection mandates, would add a significant traffic burden to the region and would “destroy the lake, environment and rural nature of this area.” Within hours of its creation, hundreds of residents had already signed it.

“The traffic on this road is already a problem,” said Robin Rosenfeld on the Change.org petition page. “Adding more cars without adding more infrastructure is absurd.”

“Traffic nightmare,” said Francoise Wolf. “Also any time there is an accident on 77 (daily), traffic gets re-routed to 115. A one-way 10 minutes commute to work to Ingersoll Rand sometimes takes me 45 minutes. One of the reason I live in the Lake Norman area is for quality of living, but it seems that this area is becoming saturated and over-crowded very quickly.”

“There are too many variables that have not been addressed,” said Alan White in comments on the petition page.

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Photo via the Town of Mooresville