Coming Monday: Epcon Communities vs. Huntersville

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HUNTERSVILLE – The Huntersville town planning staff report released Wednesday on a proposed single-family senior-living subdivision pretty much says: “No way.”

Repeatedly.

For eight pages.

The block lengths don’t work with the lot sizes, the front-loading garages are not recessed far enough from the front of the house, not enough street stubs would connect to nearby future development. The list goes on.

So the stage is set for Monday’s first public hearing before the Huntersville Board of Commissioners on a rezoning request by developer Epcon Communities of Columbus, Ohio, for its Courtyards at Huntersville proposal. The community would contain 52 units on a 16.8-acre tract on N.C. 73 near Lake Norman.

But Phil Fankhauser, principal partner of Epcon Communities, said he has been down this road before, fighting, politely and, so far, successfully, to build his company’s patented courtyard-style homes in Cornelius, Mooresville, Marvin and Stallings, despite initial opposition, usually from neighbors.

But on his company’s first try to build in Huntersville, he’s up not against nearby residents but a report that cites chapter and verse of the Huntersville zoning ordinance.

“Since (the Huntersville zoning ordinance’s) adoption in 1996, over 5,000 homes built in Huntersville have been able to meet with this requirement,” one section of the report dealing with garages and driveways says. “Granting this modification would set a precedent for future development.”

The report concludes: “Although staff sees great value in providing retirement housing within the town, staff does not support the rezoning request,” and goes on to list eight inconsistencies with the ordinance.

Fankhauser said he and his staff are ready for Monday’s meeting.

“We will show up with a good attitude, and listen and learn, and then take the next appropriate step,” Fankhauser said Wednesday, shortly after the staff report was released.

“It’s not right or wrong to do so, but the staff in Huntersville is interpreting the code literally, as it was written decades ago, before the onslaught of people in the market aged 55 and up. Our goal is to be in compliance with the spirit of the code in every way and to work with the staff and with neighbors. But what we are trying to do is be responsive to the seniors. They are in Huntersville, and in very large numbers, our research shows. It is an underserved population.”

Epcon’s courtyard-style developments and homes, originally designed based on research by the company and now tweaked in a second iteration in response to buyer reaction, Fankhauser said, have many features that are unusual for single-family houses.

The one-story homes, with optional upper-floor guest suites, are built close together on small lots that are easy to maintain, have large courtyards between houses for private outdoor living, and use front-loading garages with double-wide doors designed to be more easily accessible for older drivers. The neighborhoods are generally private, with only one entrance, in order to, in Fankhauser’s words, “discourage the bad guys” that many of Epcon’s older single female customers fear.

Many of these features have caused initial balking by other municipalities in which Epcon has built.

“Every year for the next 20 years, there will be more people over 55 than ever before, and more communities are coming to see that their codes need to change to meet with that onslaught,” Fankhauser said.

“Everything in our society is going to be changing as we do – our housing, our medical facilities, our recreation – it’s going to ripple through all forms of business. The next wave, after us, will be a huge increase in assisted-living facilities and nursing homes. We’re just the tip of the iceberg.”

Fankhauser said he expects to see seniors who live in Huntersville and real estate agents at Monday’s Board of Commissioners meeting supporting the Epcon proposal. Unlike the Courtyard at Cornelius project approved last spring, no strong opposition to the Huntersville project was voiced by neighbors at a community meeting held Sept. 30.

Monday’s public hearing will be at 6:30 p.m. at Huntersville Town Hall, 101 Huntersville-Concord Road. For more information on the proposal, go to huntersville.org, click on Departments, and follow the links to Planning and Projects List.

This story was updated to correct the spelling of Phil Fankhauser’s name.