Highway to hell: Landowners in the path of N.C. 73 realignment stand to lose lots

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North Mecklenburg County has changed dramatically over the years as Charlotte has sprawled and Lake Norman has become a popular place to live and work.

What was once a quiet, rural part of the county is now a popular place to live, and its roads are often clogged with traffic.

Even with all the development, there are still a few remaining pockets of farmland and countryside, including along the northern outskirts of Huntersville at the southern tip of the lake.

That area is being targeted for a major road construction project, which town officials say is necessary to alleviate traffic congestion and better accommodate future growth.

But it won’t come without cost to some people who are bracing to lose their land and, they say, their quality of life.

“Our plan was to live out our lives here and eventually build a house for my parents, but Huntersville has ruined that,” said David Moore, who has lived in the area 11 years and is expecting to lose about half of his six acres and possibly even his house because of the road construction.

At the heart of the controversy is what’s known as the Northwest Huntersville Transportation Study. It’s an effort to realign a stretch of N.C. Highway 73 that runs from Beatties Ford Road west into Lincoln County. It’s a long-range plan, and construction isn’t expected to happen for some 20 years. But most town officials say they need to start planning for the future now.

“Our roads are crucial to the town’s economic and social success,” said Huntersville Commissioner Ron Julian. “Growth is coming. All we can do is plan for it and try to minimize its impact.”

Over the past decade, Huntersville’s population has spiked 80 percent, from 24,960 in 2000 to 44,985 last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That, coupled with the county’s overall growth, has put a great deal of stress on the town’s roads, particularly N.C. 73, a two-lane, east-west thoroughfare that is heavily traveled and often congested, said Bill Coxe, Huntersville’s transportation planner.

To help remedy the situation, Huntersville began working with the Mecklenburg-Union Metropolitan Planning Organization in 2007 to come up with future roadway alignments for the overburdened highway. MUMPO is made of voting representatives from cities in Mecklenburg and Union counties and helps coordinate the transportation planning process in the Charlotte area.

Huntersville and MUMPO came up with options for the road construction, and on Sept. 6 Huntersville officials voted for what’s known as Option 3. It calls for about a two-mile section of N.C. 73 to be widened and moved about a half mile south to connect with Vance Road Extension.

Sections of the new four-lane alignment would run through a rural stretch of the county where dozens of families live, families like Stacy Phillips said her parents, Danny and Madeline.

The Phillipses own about 60 acres in the area targeted in Option 3 for future road construction, including along both sides of Beatties Ford Road near its intersection with N.C. 73, as well as along Brown Mill Road, a small secondary road near the same intersection, where the family has owned and operated a produce and gift shop for 12 years.

Stacy Phillips said Option 3 would gobble up much of that land for road construction, as well as along nearby Hubbard Road, where Phillips and her family live.

In addition, she said, Option 3 would wreck any chances the family has of selling its land along Beatties Ford Road for commercial development, because road construction would cut through their property and not leave enough land on either side of Beatties Ford for development.

“The land will be completely worthless because it will be nothing but roads and only good for road building,” she said.

The Phillipses tried to develop their land before. The Huntersville Town Board approved in 2008 plans for The Shops at Crossroads Village, a 120,000-square-foot, mixed-use development on about 23 acres near the N.C. 73 and Beatties Ford intersection. But the project crumbled after the developer, Charlotte-based JDH Capital, walked away from the project in 2009.

Phillips and others who live in the area opposed Option 3 in favor of Option 1, which was also before the Town Board and called for widening N.C. 73 but not moving it and, instead, extending Vance Road to intersect with the highway.

Wayne Auten, who has lived on Hubbard Road for about 20 years, argues that N.C. 73 has always been a busy state thoroughfare. It should come as no surprise to people who live or work along the road if it’s widened, he said.

He said the same is not true of Hubbard Road, a small, secondary road that he and his family sought out because of its rural setting. Auten said he and about 12 of his family members live along the road and together own about 60 acres where they keep horses. He said none of his land would be taken by the road project but the new road would pass close by and dramatically alter the area’s quality of life.

“We moved out to enjoy the country,” Auten said. “We didn’t sign on to have a four-lane highway pass by our front yard.”

Ken McDonald has lived on Hubbard Road since 1988 and stands to lose about three of his eight acres to road construction.

“Everyone bought property out here because they thought it wouldn’t be developed,” he said.

He said the new thoroughfare could benefit him and his family because his property is at the proposed intersection of Hubbard Road and the new N.C. 73 route.

“It would be prime real estate, but I didn’t buy it for that purpose,” he said.

Coxe said he understands people being upset over the proposed road construction. But the project is a necessity for the town’s future, he said.

Coxe said the two main plans — Option 1 and Option 3 —  the Town Board considered are estimated to cost about $38 million, but that doesn’t include certain infrastructure improvements that might be necessary, and the cost could inflate over time. Funding would come from a mix of federal, state and local sources.

In studying the two options, Coxe said Huntersville and MUMPO measured the estimated number of homes and businesses that would be torn down, as well as the number of homes and business within 100 feet of the future right-of-way limits that stand to be most affected by noise and congestion.

“But we’ve had people who live much farther removed from the alignment argue they will also be heavily impacted because of noise and traffic volume,” he said.

In looking at Option 1, officials determined seven homes and two businesses would be taken, and 73 homes and five businesses are in the 100-foot affected zone. For Option 3, six homes would be taken and no businesses, while 49 homes and four businesses are in the affected area.

Coxe said that in selecting the final option, the Town Board weighed those numbers along with other factors, such as health and safety.

But not all town officials support the plan. Huntersville Commissioners Charles Jeter and Danae Caulfield voted against Option 3.

Boykin can be reached at [email protected].