Mecklenburg Times: News for Mecklenburg, Union and Iredell counties Real Estate, Development, Construction, and Community News in the Charlotte area and throughout Mecklenburg, Union and Iredell counties
CORNELIUS — Anyone looking forward to Thursday’s public hearing on one of the first new subdivisions proposed for Jetton Peninsula in years can forget about it. The developer has pulled out.
Jetton, the largest of Cornelius’s many Lake Norman peninsulas, is home to The Peninsula, one of the biggest — and swankiest — housing developments in Mecklenburg County. With the exception of the county-owned Jetton Park on Lake Norman, there is precious little developable real estate that isn’t already built out.
Cornelius-based developer Bluestream Partners, which owns a 2.4-acre sliver of land along John Connor Road, had proposed subdividing it into eight lots, according to planning documents. Bluestream principal Jacob Palillo would have called the small development Connor.
But Palillo said he canceled his plans for Connor, blaming it on too-stringent water-quality restrictions.
The lots would have had fairly standard 70- to 87-foot fronts on John Connor Road. But they also would have been relatively short in depth, with one as shallow as 85 feet. That would have made the lots well under 0.5 acres, smaller than what the area is zoned for.
The lots would have been made even shorter, with relatively deep 25-foot setback zones in the backyards, setbacks required to accommodate individual water-quality catch basins.
Despite the catch basins, Cornelius Planning Director Karen Floyd said, the relative diminutive lots would “require more advanced water-quality measures.” Those measures, Palillo said, made Connor too expensive for it to have realized a substantial profit.
“Land west of Interstate 77 does have watershed restrictions,” Floyd said.
“There is also a post-construction storm water ordinance that covers the entire zoning jurisdiction,” she said. “Any new development is required to comply with these regulations. Mecklenburg County LUESA (Land Use and Environmental Services Agency) administers these engineering rules on behalf of the town.”
Palillo declined to say what his future plans for the land might be.
Tony Brown can be reached at [email protected], (704) 247-2912 or on Twitter at @tonymecktimes.
