In Mooresville, eyesores irk the village people

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When Yvonne Hart and her husband, Andrea Buzzini, moved to Mooresville Mill Village in 2002, they had high hopes.

The historic community of about 400 homes had taken shape around the old Mooresville Cotton Mills in the early 1900s. And while most of the homes were small and needed fixing up, the couple thought the area was quaint and had lots of potential. Plus, it was about a mile from the historic downtown area in fast-growing Mooresville, and homes were affordable.

They even envisioned the community transforming into a vibrant area like Charlotte’s NoDa. But nearly 10 years later, they’re still waiting.

“When we first moved here, we thought others would see the area’s potential because we did,” Hart said. “But then the reality of where we lived set in.”

Hart and Buzzini bought a little two-bedroom white cottage in the Mill Village for $47,000 in 2002 and invested about $30,000 fixing it up. They then sat back and waited for other adventurous pioneers like themselves to do the same thing.

It didn’t happen.

Absentee landlords owned the majority of the homes in the village, and many of the tenants didn’t exactly make good neighbors. Hart said drug dealers and prostitutes often roamed the streets, and transient residents would let trash pile up in their yards.

When the rental house next to them came up for sale, Hart and Buzzini decided that rather than let another slumlord swoop buy it, they’d scraped up enough money to buy the house in 2004 and fix it up.

“Our goal was to sell it to another homeowner so we could control who lived there and hopefully start transforming the area,” Hart said. “But we never were able to sell it because no one wanted to buy a house here.”

One obstacle to selling the house, Hart said, was the ramshackle rental property next to it. So when that came up for sale, they bought and renovated it, too.

“By then we had put so much money into all this we realized other homes on the street were bringing down our values,” Hart said, “so we bought another house and fixed it up. And it just continued to mushroom.”

Hart said she and Buzzini now own nine houses in the Mill Village, and she rents out all of them.

“All this started because we just wanted to protect our personal home,” she said. “Our goal is not about returns on our investments. Yes, we have bills to pay, but long term we just want to make this area livable and desirable. And that’s what’s starting to happen.”

Hart said people are moving to the community and buying homes, but she also admits that change is slow to come. She estimates that about 30 percent of the 400 mill homes are owner-occupied, while the rest are still rentals.

“For a lot of years no one thought of my neighborhood as a place to live, because when you drove through here it was kind of scary,” she said. “But people are starting to see the potential.”

That includes Amy and Jason Holt, who bought a two-bedroom mill house on Dingler Street for $89,000 in 2007.

Amy Holt, 34, said she and her husband have made minor repairs over the years and hope to one day turn their attic into a third bedroom. But living there hasn’t been easy.

For much of their time in the neighborhood, they lived next to a house that was crammed with at least a dozen people who let trash pile up in their yard, held loud, late-night parties and let their pit bulls run loose, Holt said. For all of last summer, Holt wouldn’t let her three children play outside unless she watched them.

Holt said everyone in the house next door was convicted last month, and it was condemned.

“The neighborhood has gotten better, but it’s still struggling,” she said. “And that’s because of the bad landlords. Some people don’t care who is living in their house as long as they’re getting a check. It’s shameful.”

Sue and Jim Cheek bought a three-bedroom modular home on College Street in Mill Village six years ago. Built in 1991, it’s one of about 15 homes in the neighborhood that’s not an original mill house.

Sue Cheek said she and her husband spend about half the year in Mill Village and the other half on Catalina Island, Calif. After he retires in April, they plan to move to Mill Village full time.

“We just love the quaintness of it,” she said. “Where else can you find something like this?”

But, like Holt, Cheek said they’ve had issues with neighbors.

“We call them Sanford and Son,” she said. “They have junk all over the yard. We decided we’re just going to plant some big trees in our backyard so we don’t have to look over and see a bunch of trash.”

Among the newer arrivals in Mill Village are J.R. and Karen Buchanan, who bought an 815-square-foot house on Water Street last year for $65,000. J.R. Buchanan, 31, said they’ve since spent about $10,000 on renovations.

Buchanan said a couple of houses have been broken into on his street, and there have been some drug busts. Despite that, he and his wife don’t plan on going anywhere, he said. In fact once their house is paid for, he said, they would likely buy and renovate other homes in the neighborhood to sell or rent.

Hart said people like the Buchanans are good for the neighborhood, but neglectful landlords are making it hard to turn things around.

“The landlords don’t care,” she said. “They don’t live here.”

To make matters worse, Hart said, a recent decision by the Mooresville Town Board has dealt a “devastating blow” to progress in the area.

On Sept. 19, the board OK’d the replacement of any rundown mobile homes should someone request that.

The vote came about after a long-time Mill Village resident lost his trailer because it was deemed unsafe. He ran into zoning regulations when he tried to put a new trailer on the lot.

Faced with the issue, the town board voted to amend its rule and allow existing trailers to be replaced. Three town commissioners voted against the change. Mayor Chris Montgomery broke the tie.

“The town board had to decide whether to uphold the zoning policy or uphold a man’s right to have safe place to live,” said Commissioner Chris Carney, who voted in favor of changing the zoning ordinance.

But Commissioner Mac Herring, who voted against the change, said the Mill Village resident should have done his homework and looked at housing options before buying another trailer.

“If I lived in one of these mill homes and had invested a lot of money in fixing it up, and someone next to me lived in a trailer that was falling in and they were allowed to replace it with another trailer, I would be angry,” he said. “It diminishes the value of adjacent properties.”

Carney’s not buying it.

“You had a distressed home that was already there,” he said. “Why would a new, clean home not be better than one that isn’t habitable? It’s an improvement to the area. I think government is overstepping its bounds when we start telling people they can’t have a certain type of home on their lot.”

Carney said there are about a dozen mobile homes in Mill Village and the zoning amendment only affects them. According to the new rules, only owner-occupied mobile homes, not rentals, can be replaced with another trailer. Also, any replacement mobile home has to be at least 1,200 square feet.

Hart still thinks it’s a bad move for a community trying to improve itself.

“The town board made a zoning change to accommodate a man who violated the rules,” she said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Boykin can be reached at [email protected].