Planning board hears hours of testimony on Birkdale rezoning; motion to recommend denial made

Huntersville Planning Board members spent hours hearing public comment and staff and applicant presentations on a rezoning petition for 12.36 acres at 8710 Lindholm Drive in Birkdale Village, and a board member moved to recommend denial of the application to the Town Board.

The petition, filed as R-24-11, would rezone the property within the Highway Commercial Conditional District for a mixed project that the applicant says would include a class A office building, a 125-room hotel, two parking decks and multifamily housing. Planning staff summarized the current submission as about 12.36 acres with roughly 50 multifamily units, about 26,700 square feet of commercial space, a 175,000-square-foot office building noted on plans (staff said 122,000 square feet is rentable office area) and 125 hotel rooms; the plans call for two parking decks.

The Petition matters because it would change the layout, scale and parking supply in Huntersville’s most prominent mixed‑use core and could affect adjacent small businesses, the town’s traffic circulation and the character of Birkdale Village.

Public commenters and several board members pressed two recurring points: loss of existing surface parking, and whether the town’s parking standards and traffic infrastructure can accommodate the new uses. Small-business owners and tenants described existing deeded or declared parking rights and said the proposed hotel footprint would eliminate dozens of surface spaces they now use. One business manager, Roy Dalton, identified himself as a multi‑unit manager for VisionWorks and said, “Our VisionWorks store relies on accessible and convenient parking to serve our…