Mooresville council approves rezoning to allow RaceTrack/Raceway site after applicant presentation and neighbor objections

The Mooresville Town Council on Jan. 7 approved a zoning change for the southeast corner of State Road 67 and Old State Road 67 to allow a RaceTrack/Raceway auto service and convenience store on the northern parcel. Elizabeth Benz Williams, a land-use planner with Clark, Quinn, Moses, Scott and Grand, told the council the planning commission gave a unanimous positive recommendation and that the request would replat roughly 15.3 acres, reserving about 9.39 acres for the seller and enabling an approximately 3,500-square-foot raceway building on a roughly 6-acre parcel.

Resident Rita Secrest, who said she owns property behind the proposed site, urged denial and said paperwork lacked statistical traffic and environmental analysis. “There is no way that volume of traffic does not affect our community and our neighborhood,” Secrest said, citing pump counts in the applicant materials and asking how groundwater runoff, noise and light would be addressed.

Zack Sen, identified at the hearing as a Raceway representative, said the company’s traffic study was completed and approved and that the developer would fund required turn-lane improvements. “We will have to make some turn lane improvements into our site at our cost,” Sen said, and he told the council the facility would not provide truck-stop amenities such as showers or driver lounges and would not include truck parking.

Williams and Sen also described safety and mitigation measures: double-walled fuel tanks with continuous inspections, dark-sky-compliant lighting, and site buffers they said would limit impacts. Williams said the proposed diesel canopies are intended for local and regional drivers and asserted the project would bring public utilities to the site, which could unlock future commercial development consistent with the town’s comprehensive plan.

Neighbors Doug and Lucy Kuykendahl, who live directly across Old State Road 67, complained the proposed diesel driveway aligns with their house and would bring headlights, noise and safety risks. “Every time a semi truck comes in or out, it’ll be shining right into our house,” Doug Kuykendahl said.

After questions and a brief exchange about planning-commission conditions and driveway/turn-lane work, the council moved to accept the planning commission recommendation and voted in favor.

The rezoning approval is conditioned only by any outstanding permit-design items identified during final design and by a separate sign-height variance to be considered in February; the council did not list additional stipulations at the meeting. The town indicated the variance for sign height would be for a 25-foot sign and that final site design details remain to be completed. The council did not adopt any additional traffic or environmental restrictions at the Jan. 7 vote.