M/I wins planning board OK for new Avery Park plan

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HUNTERSVILLE — M/I Homes on Tuesday night presented a radically altered site plan for its controversial Avery Park subdivision, making changes to address the concerns of neighbors protesting the proposed project.

M/I, one of the largest builders in Charlotte and nationally, had originally proposed a development of 110 homes on a 42-acre vacant tract on Gilead Road near Wynfield Creek Parkway. Under that plan, Avery Park’s density would have been higher than that of Wynfield, a neighboring, 1980s-era subdivision.

The plan submitted Tuesday night by M/I reduces the number of homes to 82, lowering the density from an average 2.6 units per acre to 1.9 in response to what one of the protesters called the group’s “No. 1 concern.”

But it wasn’t enough for the opponents, who said they “acknowledge” the changes and continued to cite the same problems laid out in 184 protest letters and petitions they’ve filed with the town.

The protests did no good; after a contentious, 90-minute meeting, the town of Huntersville’s Planning Board voted to recommend that a rezoning proposal allowing the development of Avery Park to move forward.

The town’s Board of Commissioners still has to vote on the project, though.

The new plan also gets rid of homes on narrow, 30-foot lots with alley-loaded garages and increases by fivefold the size of a forested buffer between the two neighborhoods, from 30 feet — which was already 10 feet wider than required by the town — to 150 feet, about half the length of a football field.

In other concessions, M/I moved a road to be farther away from a nearby historic property, effectively increasing a buffer, and added a pedestrian pathway to try to address traffic concerns.

With all of the changes, M/I representative Bob Wiggins said the homes in Avery Park would sell for a base price of around $300,000 apiece, up from the original estimate of $270,000, also addressing a claim by Wynfield residents that the new subdivision would adversely affect their home values.

Jack Simoneau, town planning director, and Whitney Hodges, town planner, told the planning board that the proposal continues to meet or exceed what is required by ordinances and lives up to goals in the town’s “2030” long-term planning document.

The two planners recommended that the board back M/I’s new plan.

The five protesters at Tuesday’s meeting, down from a packed crowd at a public hearing three weeks ago, live on Charterhouse Lane, the street in Wynfield that would border the 150-foot buffer.

Charterhouse resident Jim Beaty, speaking on behalf of other residents, said he appreciated the new plan’s “efforts to minimize the impact on the area,” calling it “a step in the right direction.”

But “we still have some concerns,” he said, reiterating the same issues the new plan sought to address.

Beaty said one of the concerns — the possibility that the proposed subdivision would increase traffic on Gilead Road and Wynfield Creek Parkway — was not really addressed by the new plan.

He said he was particularly worried about the safety of children walking unaccompanied along Wynfield Creek Parkway.

The town planners said they had not had enough time to study the potential traffic impact of the new proposal. But they said the reduced number of homes would logically result in fewer vehicles on roadways.

Although he later said the protest was not a NIMBY — “not in my backyard” — stance, Beaty asked the planning board “Why here?”

“We’re not opposed just to be opposers,” he said after the meeting.

The planning board members fired most of their questions during the meeting at the two town planners, with most of the queries coming from planning board Chairman Bruce Andersen, a 14-year board member.

Despite Andersen’s recommendation to his fellow board members to oppose M/I’s plan, the board voted 7-2 to send the proposal on to the Board of Commissioners, with a recommendation to approve it.

Commissioners are expected to take final action on the proposal at a Nov. 19 meeting. Commissioners were originally scheduled to vote on it Nov. 5, but M/I asked for a delay to make changes and further address the planning board’s concerns.

Winning the commissioners’ vote could be tough for M/I; because of the protests, the M/I’s proposal needs support from a supermajority of commissioners, meaning that five of the six commissioners must back the project or the motion will fail.

If M/I’s plan doesn’t win commissioners’ support, landowner Margaret Basinger, who also testified at Tuesday night’s meeting, said she might be forced by the taxes she pays on the land to “bring in a forester and cut all the timber” down. The land is now home to mature pines.

Simoneau told the planning board that Basinger could clear-cut the property without the town’s consent, because the trees were planted to be harvested as an agricultural crop.

Asked after the meeting if the residents of Wynfield would rather see the land denuded, Beaty said he hoped Basinger would find a “good use for the property.”

Tony Brown can be reached at [email protected], (704) 247-2912 or on Twitter at @tonymecktimes.