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Huntersville board approves Old Statesville Road mixed‑use rezoning with conditions
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Summary
The town board approved rezoning petition R25-15 for a mixed-use development on Old Statesville Road after staff and applicants revised plans to add townhomes, increase ground-floor commercial, and propose mitigation for stream impacts; condition set include TIA work, tree mitigation options, and a Building C height increase to 48 feet.
The Huntersville town board voted March 17 to approve rezoning petition R25-15 (Old Statesville Road mixed-use) with several conditions intended to address planning-board concerns and improve the project's land-use mix.
Planning staff entered the R25-15 report into the record and said recent revisions include replacing a previously proposed apartment building with townhomes in one quadrant, increasing commercial square footage in the two front buildings, and raising Building C's height to recover housing units. Staff noted the applicant moved impervious surface out of a 100-foot perennial buffer but still requests a modification for limited disturbance to an intermittent stream buffer and plans to purchase mitigation credits under option 8 of the town ordinance.
The applicant's representative said the changes increase ground-floor retail facing Old Statesville Road and provide a clearer transition in building types. Engineer Craig Berwick explained stormwater plans that include two detention facilities — a surface retention pond on the south and an underground sand-filter system on the north — intended to control flows for the 2-, 10- and 50-year storm events and to provide water-quality treatment. Berwick said the sand filters require annual maintenance and have an expected service life of roughly 20 years.
Commissioners asked detailed questions about the stream-buffer disturbance, tree-save mitigation options (on-site planting versus tree‑bank fund), wetlands treatment, and traffic-impact analysis. Staff and the applicant said tree mitigation details would be resolved in construction documents and that any required updated traffic-impact analysis (TIA) must be completed before approval of preliminary plans if the changed density requires new scoping.
Commissioner Walsh moved to approve R25-15 with seven conditions including: permitting 100% attached housing, allowing a modified 60% ground-floor commercial requirement while setting minimum commercial layout and office limits, using ordinance options for tree mitigation and stream-buffer mitigation (option 8 with mitigation credits routed toward local restoration), increasing Building C height from 36 to 48 feet, and requiring all TIA scoping and staff comments to be addressed prior to approval of construction drawings. The motion carried with Commissioners Smallwood, Quarles, Rivers, Walsh and Cornett voting in favor and Commissioner Hunt voting opposed.
The conditions require the petitioner to implement identified TIA improvements and address all remaining staff comments before advancing to construction documents.
