Gastonia council adopts TIA policy changes and approves Southeast corridor study after developers raise grandfathering concerns

Gastonia City Council on Jan. 21 adopted changes to the city’s Transportation Impact Analysis (TIA) policy and approved a contract for a Southeast Gastonia (Union Road/Union–New Hope) corridor study, moves council members and staff said are intended to make traffic impacts clearer before rezonings are approved.

Council members voted unanimously to amend the TIA policy to require mitigation-measures agreements tied to rezoning so that traffic impacts and responsible mitigation are documented up front. Later in the meeting the council voted 5–1 to award the Southeast area transportation study contract to Kimley-Horn and Associates for $204,600.

The measures aim to give planning staff, the planning commission and City Council a single, shared set of traffic assumptions before development entitlements are granted. Proponents said the changes reduce the risk of ad hoc mitigation decisions after projects are entitled; critics — chiefly developers with projects already in the corridor — said the timing could delay projects and raise costs.

Developers and engineers who spoke during public comment urged the council to “grandfather” projects already in the pipeline or otherwise avoid adding months to active rezoning timelines. Eric Clay of Meka Commercial Real Estate said he and other sellers and developers were told the corridor study could delay zoning review and site timelines by nine months to a year and described the risk that contracts and financing could be destabilized. Civil engineer Brian Linton, working with Granite Springs Development, asked that projects that had already entered the rezoning process be allowed to proceed on their current timelines.

City staff acknowledged the pipeline issue but said the intent is not to stop staff review of applications. Corey (transportation staff) and Planning Director Sushil explained that the corridor study is meant to produce a coordinated technical framework so later, smaller Technical Memorandum TIAs for each project can rely on consistent assumptions. Staff told council most detailed project reviews can continue, but that the transportation component presented to planning commission and council would be aligned to the corridor study findings. Planning staff also said projects that entered the process prior to the corridor study and outside the study area will not be retroactively subject to the new requirement.

Corey described three broad approaches the city considered: (1) process each project’s TIA separately and sequentially, which can stretch reviews; (2) have developers jointly commission a study, which practitioners told staff often fails if one or more projects drop out; or (3) have the city commission the corridor study, use it to set a common baseline, then require abbreviated site-specific TIAs tied to that baseline and assign mitigations on the back end. City staff recommended option (3) and said it best balances speed and technical rigor.

Council discussion repeatedly returned to projects already underway. Staff and the city attorney told the council state law requires project-specific mitigation tied to the traffic a particular development generates; making a blanket assignment in advance can be legally and administratively difficult. Planning staff said their inventory of active applications showed seven projects in the city’s pipeline that would be affected by the new timing, six of them in the Southeast corridor. Staff emphasized they would continue to expedite plan review where possible while the corridor study proceeds.

Council members expressed competing concerns: several argued the corridor study is necessary to avoid a Southpoint‑style outcome and to protect longer-term residents and infrastructure planning; others argued the city should not impose delays on developers who had already made investments and entered the process.

Council approved the TIA policy amendment unanimously and later approved the Kimley‑Horn contract for $204,600 by a 5–1 vote, giving staff direction to move ahead with the corridor study while continuing technical reviews of development submittals.

The council directed staff to report back about how the corridor study’s recommendations would be incorporated into developer mitigation agreements and to provide an updated list of projects in the rezoning pipeline. Staff estimated that an individual project TIA review typically extends to about four to six months in part because NCDOT review can add 40 business days; the corridor study is intended to shorten subsequent project-level TIA work by supplying a study-wide baseline and recommended improvements.

What’s next: the corridor study will proceed under the Kimley‑Horn scope approved by council; staff will continue plan reviews and return with drafts of how the corridor study results will be applied to project TIAs and mitigation agreements.

Sources: City of Gastonia planning and transportation committee presentations; public comments by developers recorded at the Jan. 21, 2025 City Council meeting.