Land Use Board recommends denial for Seacrest conditional rezoning after resident flooding and traffic concerns

The Union County Land Use Board on Oct. 21 recommended denial of a conditional rezoning application (CZ2024‑CZ‑005, called the Seacrest rezoning) that sought to rezone about 12 acres on Seacrest Shortcut from R‑20 to B‑4 with conditions to allow an indoor artisan market, an outdoor flea market and a driver education facility.

Planning staff described the site as roughly 12 acres with a substantial portion in FEMA floodplain and a Duke Energy transmission corridor running across it. Staff said public water and sewer are available to the site, and noted that the applicant provided site plans and the materials typically required to include a use that would otherwise require a special‑use permit into a conditional rezoning. Staff summarized community outreach: a July community meeting attended by 11 residents produced concerns about buffering, the scale of the flea market, the driveway location and periodic flooding on Seacrest Shortcut. Municipal planners in Indian Trail, Hemby Ridge and Lake Park were emailed and submitted comments opposing the proposal, citing traffic and land‑use concerns.

The applicant, Carvey Milton, and project civil engineer John Rosna presented a site plan showing an approximately 10,000‑square‑foot single‑story indoor artisan market with roughly 18 vetted indoor vendors, two outdoor vendor areas (about 28 outdoor vendors on weekends), a roughly 2,000‑square‑foot driver education classroom and a stormwater pond/bioretention facility to capture runoff. The project team said impervious surfaces would total just over 1 acre and that they planned buffers and screening beyond UDO minimums (providing tree plantings every 30 feet and an extra 10 feet of natural area adjacent to the property line).

Neighbors testified against the rezoning. A resident of Arbor Glen, Arianne Gorderamis, told the board that her neighborhood already experiences regular flooding and said she feared additional runoff and more frequent neighborhood flooding if the site were developed. She also said weekend flea‑market traffic and weekday driver‑education traffic would increase congestion at the nearby intersection that leads to the Monroe Expressway and would bring noise and litter near adjacent backyards; she said one neighbor’s nonverbal autistic son is sensitive to noise.

Board members questioned the applicants about floodplain impacts, stormwater mitigation and driveway location; applicants said floodplain areas would not be developed and that stormwater would be collected in a sand‑filter/bioretention facility and discharged to the stream at the south of the property. Staff and applicants also noted constraints (transmission line easement, sanitary sewer easement and overhead electric easements) that limit developable acreage to roughly 3–4 acres of the parcel.

At the vote stage a motion to recommend approval failed to gain a second. A subsequent motion to recommend denial of the conditional rezoning, accompanied by an advisory consistency and reasonableness statement, passed on a voice vote.

The advisory recommendation of denial will be transmitted to the Board of Commissioners for final action. The applicant may address staff comments and the board’s reasons for denial before the commissioners’ hearing.