Huntersville planning board recommends conditional rezoning for Commerce Station industrial site; stream mitigation to target Cane Creek

The Huntersville Planning Board recommended approval of a conditional rezoning for roughly 64.5 acres at 12705 Commerce Station Drive, a proposal to allow industrial and flex-warehouse development, after staff and the applicant agreed to conditions addressing stream-buffer disturbance, block length and road connections.

The proposal, filed as Petition R-2414 (Commerce Station Industrial), would convert the site from corporate business (CB) to corporate business conditional district (CBCD) to permit a four-lot subdivision intended for flex/distribution and warehouse uses. Staff framed the request as a series of plan modifications rather than an outright intensification of underlying uses and recommended approval with the conditions listed in the staff report. "Staff recommends approval with all the conditions that are outlined in the staff report," Planning Department staff member Brad Priest said.

The rezoning plan includes a proposed extension of Commerce Station Drive and a stub to the adjacent Greenway Waste landfill property so heavy truck traffic could be routed off Holbrooks Road, a residential street. The applicants agreed to dedicate a right-of-way for the Everett Keith and Verhoff Drive alignments under discussion with NCDOT and the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO). The applicants and staff said the proposed stub would provide an alternative entrance for landfill trucks.

The plan also calls for disturbing an existing stream buffer along a tributary to Cane Creek and requests modifications to the corporate-business buffer standards (the CB buffer requires an 80-foot buffer along Vierhoff/Verhoff Drive). The applicant has proposed mitigation; during the presentation the applicant said, "the intent is to have a note that says that that, those mitigation fees will be applied to Cane Creek," tying mitigation to a local stream. Priest said staff is seeking an "apples-to-apples" water-quality swap and is working with Mecklenburg County to pursue upgrades to Cane Creek as mitigation for the disturbance.

Traffic and access remain unresolved in detail. A traffic-impact analysis (TIA) is under review and mitigation shown on the plan is draft rather than final. Staff warned the applicant that the Commerce Station Drive extension would exceed the block-length standard for industrial streets (proposed about 2,300 feet versus a 1,500-foot maximum) and asked that private drives “walk and talk” like a public street to create required breaks and trigger sidewalk requirements; staff recommended retaining sidewalks along the route. Priest said the applicant had agreed to revise the plan to show potential alignments so the rezoning can better match any eventual CRTPO/NCDOT alignment.

Crescent Communities and GTIS are the applicant team; Robert (Urban Law Group) represented the partnership at the meeting and introduced Chase Curley of Crescent Communities, who described the developer’s experience and design approach. "Stewardship is very important to us," Curley said, describing materials and sustainability goals for future buildings.

Planning board members emphasized keeping mitigation local. "The water mitigation definitely important, that it stay local only because we are the source for so much of the region's... drinking water," one board member said. Planning Board member Jay Henson said during the motion discussion: "I'm totally okay with the stream buffer disturbance in the mitigation, the buffer mitigation, all of that."

The board moved to recommend approval with the modifications and the staff recommendations noted in the staff report. The motion text stated the plan is consistent with policies LU-1.1, LU-5, LU-7.1, LU-8.2, LU-11.1 and EOS-1.1 of the Huntersville 2040 plan and cited the public benefits of the project, including dedicated right-of-way for the Verhoff and Everett Keith alignments and an alternative entrance to the landfill.

Technical and procedural items remain outstanding: the TIA review and final mitigation amounts, the finalized alignment for Verhoff Drive (the applicant and staff expect the CRTPO/NCDOT process to take months), and how future lot-level development will be handled if proposed buildings exceed the TIA’s assumptions. Staff and the applicant said they will update the rezoning plan as alignment options solidify and work with Mecklenburg County on locally focused stream mitigation.

The Planning Board recommendation will be included in the application record as the rezoning moves forward. No formal vote tally was recorded in the available transcript excerpt.