Mooresville Delays Vote On Controversial High-Density Development Plan

MOORESVILLE, NC -- Facing intense opposition Monday evening, Mooresville’s Board of Commissioners delayed a vote on a contentious development plan that would turn more than 100 acres of pastoral land on the bank of Lake Davidson into a high-density residential and commercial development, according to a local report.

The commissioners had been poised to vote at the June 5 meeting on rezoning the 140-acre tract of land on Highway 115, also known as Mecklenburg Highway, that sits in Iredell County right at the Mecklenburg County line in order to accommodate high-density development. The scheduled vote, however, drew intense criticism from some area residents who say the scheme to develop the land would create environmental and quality of life problems.

The town’s commissioners instead voted to delay making a decision until the July 10 meeting, according to a report by the Mooresville Tribune.

Around 145 people attended the Monday night meeting at Mooresville’s town hall, most in opposition to the development plan, the newspaper said.

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The rezoning plan, spearheaded by developer Hinckley Gauvain, would rezone the current single family residential property to commercial mixed use and neighborhood mixed use. Rezoning would pave the way for 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.

Earlier in the day before Monday night’s meeting, a petition opposing the plan began circulating. 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