Planning board tables request to waive 100‑year storm requirement for 38‑lot Beckingham subdivision

Weddington Town planning board members on Feb. 24 tabled a request from Provident Land to remove the town's 100‑year stormwater detention requirement for the 38‑lot Beckingham subdivision and replace it with per‑lot rain‑harvesting cisterns.

The applicant, represented by Tom (the project lead) and a team that included Kristen Dillard of Provident Land and engineer Weston, told the board the subdivision covers roughly 62 acres and would be a low‑density, custom‑home development with about 17.5% impervious area overall. The proposal would require each of the 38 lots to include an underground rain‑harvesting cistern—described by the applicant as a minimum 10,000‑gallon tank—maintained through covenants and the homeowners association. The applicant said installing the town‑required 100‑year detention ponds would force substantial additional clearing and grading and trigger the state's higher "high density" review.

Staff planner Greg told the board that the 100‑year detention standard was adopted in the town's UDO and that, because the applicant's previous conditional zoning approval referenced current regulations at the time (CZ 2023‑2), the burden is on the applicant to show why the town should vary the standard or what will replace it. "Staff is not in favor of waving rules arbitrarily, certainly not in regards to storm water," Greg said during the presentation.

The applicant framed the rain‑harvesting approach as an environmental tradeoff: "We're asking for a variance of that, a waiver of that, so what are we giving back?" Tom said. He added the developer would require the cisterns through builder agreements and record maintenance obligations in covenants so the systems would be operational and inspected over time.

Board members pressed technical points: several members and the applicant's engineer explained that placing detention ponds in the planned locations would, under the state regulator's interpretation, require directing all impervious runoff to those ponds and could trigger more intensive infrastructure and tree clearing on the site. Members also questioned whether rooftop collection alone could meaningfully substitute for the detention volume that a 100‑year pond is designed to hold. The applicant estimated the proposed cisterns would collect roughly a half‑million gallons across the site, but acknowledged the cisterns would not capture all driveway and roadway runoff.

Several planning board members said the town needs stronger, site‑specific analysis before altering the standard. One member cited downstream risk: "At the very least before I would entertain anything would be that downstream impact analysis," they said, and asked for a flood‑study or downstream hydrologic analysis to quantify potential effects on downstream properties. Staff recommended the board ask for additional information and for consultant LaBella to help define the scope of a downstream review.

The planning board unanimously voted to table the conditional‑zoning amendment request and follow staff's recommendation for further analysis, leaving any decision to the Town Council after the applicant provides the requested downstream impact study, maintenance details for the cisterns, and any additional technical documentation.

What happens next: The applicant may revise the conditional‑zoning request or provide the downstream analysis and maintenance/operation plans requested by staff; if the applicant pursues a change to the CZ approval it must return to the planning board and then to Town Council for final action.