Epcon adds to its 55-and-older developments

Epcon Communities this week reinforced its march into the region’s single-family market with the Huntersville Board of Commissioners‘ approval of one of its communities of patio-style, detached condominium homes for adults 55 and older.

On Jan. 6, after weeks of trying but failing to win over the town’s Planning Department and appointed Planning Board, the Columbus, Ohio-based Epcon got the go-ahead for the new 50-unit Courtyards at Huntersville after convincing the elected officials that the special features of the project that conflict with the town’s older zoning ordinance were attractive and commercially justified enough to merit exceptions.

Freshly victorious in Huntersville, Epcon also this week held simultaneous initial public meetings Jan. 7 to open the approval process for similar developments in Cornelius and Stallings. If approved by the towns, they would become each town’s second patio-home subdivision built and developed by Epcon.

In addition to the two proposed and three under-construction subdivisions mentioned above, Epcon has an approval in pocket for a sixth in Marvin and plans to open a model home in a seventh in Mooresville in the near future, founding partner Phil Fankhauser said in an interview this week.

The communities all target the burgeoning ranks of the AARP army, the flower-power people not yet gone to seed, the 1950s and ’60s spring chickens seeking baby boom-tailored shelter from the anticipated winter ahead.

And they also represent a new and concerted corporate push by Epcon into a pair of N.C.’s fastest growing markets, Fankhauser said. Previously, Epcon homes were built by franchisees.

“Our research led us to choose Charlotte and Raleigh as primary targets for corporate growth,” said Fankhauser, who was in Charlotte for this week’s municipal-process meetings. “With your existing population and with the expected growth in the area, one in five people will be over 55 by 2018.”

U.S. Census data for Huntersville’s 28708 ZIP code back Fankhauser up, estimating that 22 percent of the population will be in double-nickels or better four years from now.

Recent research by Epcon, including 6,000 interviews with baby boomers, led to the design by landscapers and architects of Epcon’s latest offerings: developments filled by large open areas and closely spaced homes with large first-floors wrapped three-quarters around a large central patio accessible to multiple rooms. Optional half-floors upstairs can accommodate another homebuilding trend: younger generations who live there or visit often.

“We found three things in common from everybody: quality – that never goes out of style – and no mowers and no steps, anywhere,”
Fankhauser said. “We found a lot more, too. So we did what few builders – including ourselves – had ever done: a complete scrap of what we had done and a redefinition of our brand by building not what we wanted but what the customers told us they wanted.”

But many of the features they want require architectural and engineering changes that did not sync with some local land-use plans and zoning ordinances largely written in 1990s, when the boomers were still blithely in their 40s-are-the-new-30s mindset.

That has resulted in some tough battles for Epcon, especially in the fast-growing Lake Norman area. They include the recently won campaign in Huntersville and a six-month struggle spanning 2012-13 in Cornelius over the 25-home Courtyards at Jetton development now under construction.

In Cornelius, there was friction over things such as the homes’ double-wide garage doors – designed to help older drivers negotiate entering and, especially, backing out – and the code’s insistence that front-facing, two-bay garages have two doors to avoid suburban, cookie-cutter houses.

That problem was solved by Epcon with slight design and materials modifications to its plans that suggested two doors, and the company also made some 20 other concessions.

The project – met in November 2012 by the public with “Stop Epcon” signs and by development-skeptical Cornelius Commissioner David Gilroy with a “smells like another high-density development that is way out of whack” comment – eventually won the day with a unanimous vote of the board and a “Welcome to Cornelius” from then-Mayor Lynette Rinker.

The just-concluded Courtyards at Huntersville struggle lacked some of the public fireworks, but had its arduous turns for both the town and the company.

Some neighbors were opposed – and remained vocally so at Monday’s meeting – fearing that the development would significantly worsen traffic on N.C. 73 at Terry Lane, which one resident at the meeting called “a deathtrap waiting to happen” and a “game of chicken.”

Several other members of the public, however, showed up to say they supported more of what they called “active-adult” housing, and that traffic was bad everywhere near Lake Norman.

David Childress of Cornelius, for example, said this about the Epcon proposal: “Me and lot of older folks are thinking, ‘This is the kind place where I want to live. Give an old guy a place to a place to go.'”

(Huntersville Mayor Jill Swain jokingly replied that any Cornelius resident wanting to move to Huntersville was more than welcome.)

But unlike in Cornelius, where Epcon won the backing of the planning staff and board, this was largely a ground-game between the Huntersville Planning Department and Epcon.

The initial staff report, written by planner Whitney Hodges with support from Planning Director Jack Simoneau, urged the commissioners to deny the application by citing violations of numerous provisions of the town’s 1996 zoning ordinance.

Fankhauser and Epcon Vice President Craig Thomas said modifications should be made to accommodate needs not anticipated back then. The staff report replied that such modifications can be made by the commissioners under the code but that Epcon’s requests were “not in the spirit” of the ordinance.

Epcon then made concessions involving the length of the blocks, getting rid of one lot to install a future alternate entrance, and putting sidewalks on both sides of the streets where the ordinance demands them.

But the follow-up staff report, which noted the changes positively, was still negative in its conclusion. And unlike in Cornelius, the town’s appointed Planning Board also rejected Epcon’s plans, 5-3.

With that to work with Monday night, the Huntersville Board of Commissioners largely kept their questions to the public’s traffic concerns and learned that Epcon would install left-turn lanes, and possibly right-turn lanes as well if required by the state Department of Transportation, to Highway 73. And, they were told, the traffic generated by a typical development restricted to older adults is less than half that of family-oriented one, meaning the Epcon community did not require a traffic impact study.

Then, as in Cornelius, the Huntersville elected representatives voted unanimously, 6-0, with the proviso that Epcon work with the Planning Department to discuss the staff’s desire to see a second street stub that could connect to future nearby development.

That left Fankhauser feeling bullish about the possibility of more Epcon developments in Huntersville, “where we feel there is a lot of opportunity.”

And he said the company’s previous victories in Cornelius and Stallings make him more confident about the two new proposals in those municipalities.

In Cornelius, the newly proposed Courtyards at Nantz would occupy 21 acres at Nantz Road and West Catawba Avenue with 63 patio homes as well as an office building, a feature that could prove to be a sweetener for some of the anti-residential development commissioners, Planning Director Wayne Herron said.

A Cornelius Planning Board meeting about the new proposal is set for 6:30 p.m. Feb. 10; the Board of Commissioners is scheduled to hear it on March 3. Both meetings are at Town Hall, 21445 Catawba Ave. For more information, including a sketch plan, go to cornelius.org, click on Your Government, and follow the links to Departments, Planning & Zoning and projects.

Epcon’s rezoning request in Stallings – a Union County town near Matthews and Mint Hill that is fast becoming a hotbed for residential development, town Planner Lynne Hair said – is for 34 acres off Lawyers Road. Epcon wants to put a larger development with 92 homes on vacant land contiguous with the well-established Emerald Lake subdivision.

The Stallings Town Council will hold a public hearing on the proposal at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10 in Town Hall, 315 Stallings Road. To see the application and sketch plan, go to stallingsnc.org, click on Town Departments, and follow the links to Planning & Zoning.

Fankhauser, who helped found Epcon 29 years ago, said he’s likely to be at all those meetings. Asked about all the time he’s spending away from Columbus and in the Carolinas, he said, “You should speak with my wife.”

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