Francis, a member of Huntersville planning staff, presented a 25-year analysis of single‑family and multifamily development during a pre‑meeting discussion on the town's development pattern and possible moratoria.

The presentation mapped Huntersville’s community plans dating to 1988 and the town’s 1996 form‑based zoning code, and showed that higher‑intensity development has concentrated in an “intensity corridor” roughly one mile either side of I‑77. Francis said the town contains about 65 square miles and most recent multifamily projects are located in that core where infrastructure for shopping and travel exists.

The nut graf: the slide deck showed that while single‑family acreage and approvals still exceed multifamily, multifamily approvals and construction have increased recently, prompting council questions about whether the town can pause approvals and what legal pathways exist to do so.

Francis summarized the numeric picture: “So we've got about 11,000 units that were approved via rezoning and about 8,500 that were done by right,” he said, and added that the mapping counts roughly 11,500 acres of single‑family development and about 2,000 acres of multifamily (the presenter called the maps approximations). He also told the group the town’s broader inventory, counting approvals that predate 1996, includes roughly 23,000 approved single‑family units with just under 2,000 remaining to be built; about 2,100 townhomes approved with roughly 250 remaining; and about 10,500 multifamily units approved with roughly 3,400 still in inventory to be built.

Staff walked through why approvals do not always go straight to construction: some large projects take five to seven years from approval to construction and others can take 10–15 years because of engineering, permitting (including Army Corps permits), or waiting for infrastructure from N.C. Department of Transportation. Francis said market shifts and COVID relocation patterns accelerated recent multifamily activity, observing that Huntersville benefited as an early suburban market outside Charlotte.

Councilmembers asked whether changes to the town’s by‑right allowances would shift more projects into rezoning review. Francis said a 2019 ordinance change that reduced administrative flexibility had already increased the portion of projects requiring rezoning, which gives the town more discretionary review. He also reviewed several recent rezonings and projects by name, including Oak Grove Hill, Laguna Bay, age‑restricted projects on Beattysburg Road, and larger legacy approvals such as portions of Vermillion and Brighton that remain on the books.

When asked directly about moratoria, Emily (staff legal counsel) summarized the statutory authority and procedural requirements. She said the source of authority is N.C. Gen. Stat. § 160D‑107 and cautioned that a moratorium’s duration must be “reasonable in light of the specific conditions” being addressed and “cannot exceed the period of time needed to correct, modify, or resolve the conditions” the town identifies. Emily said a moratorium adopted for the purpose of developing or adopting new residential plans or regulations is disallowed by statute.

Emily listed procedural steps and exemptions required by statute and local ordinance: a moratorium generally requires a public hearing (with specified newspaper notice depending on duration), a written statement of the conditions the moratorium seeks to correct, a clear termination date and schedule of actions the town will take, and an itemization of which development approvals would be subject to it. She said certain projects are exempt from moratoria, including projects the town has determined to have vested rights, applications for special use permits already accepted as complete, projects with substantial expenditures in good‑faith reliance on prior approvals, and preliminary or final subdivision plats accepted for review prior to the call for a public hearing. “Projects that have been vested…are not gonna be subject to it,” Emily said.

On what would qualify as a problem the town could lawfully address with a moratorium, staff gave examples and limits: an emergency that takes a wastewater treatment facility offline could justify a temporary pause in approvals while repairs occur; school overcrowding would not, because school capacity is a county (Charlotte‑Mecklenburg Schools) function beyond the town’s zoning authority. Francis and Emily both emphasized that procedural notice and statutory exemptions constrain how broadly a moratorium can be applied.

No formal motion or vote occurred during this pre‑meeting. Staff committed to distribute the slide deck to council members and to post the material on the planning section of the town website; Francis said he would email the slides to attendees shortly.

Ending: The presentation closed after a roughly 25–30 minute staff briefing and a sequence of council questions; staff said it will make the slides publicly available and remain available for follow‑up questions.