South Charlotte community in familiar pattern: When developers buy, everyone must go.
Some 40 families renting in Charlotte’s Sterling neighborhood are scrambling to move after a developer bought their homes earlier this month and told them they all must vacate, some in a matter of days.
Residents of the south Charlotte community near South and Westinghouse boulevards say they began receiving vacate notices earlier this month from the new owner, which property records show bought dozens of single family homes for $6.6 million earlier this month. The Rock Hill-based company is also connected to new luxury town homes under nearby.
News of the vacate orders was first reported this week by WSOC-TV.
The sale leaves dozens of families scrambling to find housing, and follows a familiar pattern in Charlotte: the city’s growth and development often comes at the expense of those already living here. Families in the Sterling neighborhood are nearly all on month-to-month leases and have little recourse to stop their removal.
Dora Robinson, 63, has lived on Ervin Lane for nearly 12 years. It’s been a financial struggle since her fiance died two years ago, but she could just make the $830 rent with her Supplemental Security Income, along with utilities help from local agencies. But now, she has a June 30 deadline to find new housing for herself and 9-year-old granddaughter, Miyelle.
“There’s nowhere in Charlotte — absolutely nowhere — that I can afford to live and be able to make it,” she said. The abrupt removal has triggered anxiety attacks, she said.
“They don’t care,” she said. “You can’t care if you turn around and just say ‘You gotta get out,” she said. “If you had any type of compassion you would have informed us. Then we would have more time to prepare.”
In North Carolina landlords can give a notice period as short as seven days for monthly leases set to expire, though 30-day notices are also common.
New owners
Blu South Single Family I LLC bought 44 parcels of land May 3, Mecklenburg property records show. Nearly all contain modest single family homes built in the 1940s through 1960s.
Residents told The Charlotte Observer the neighborhood was quiet, a place they felt safe, where rent was more affordable than elsewhere in south Charlotte. Demolition and construction of new homes has already begun. Personal belongings, including children’s toys, mattresses and couches pile up at the end of driveways where families have already left.
Representatives from Blu South Single Family I LLC, the owner listed in county property records and River Investment Properties LLC, which described itself in letters to tenants as the new property management, refused to answer the Observer’s questions about the length of the notice period or what’s next for the properties.
“The new ownership has alternate plans for the property,” read one May 11 letter from River Investment Properties LLC reviewed by the Observer. “We understand this may comes as a shock to many of you.”
That letter and follow-ups offered incentives if residents left earlier, including $500 and their full security deposit.
Debbie Briscoe is skeptical of those offers, particularly one that said it was open to “the first 5 tenants” to sign and return the form agreeing to an expedited exit.
Briscoe, 56, who is legally blind and does not drive, said she moved into her two-bedroom home in December, coming off her daughter’s death from cancer in 2020.
“I’ve never lived this far out of Charlotte. I’ve always been central to everything. So this was a big change, but it was really nice,” she said. She liked the quiet street and neighbors who looked in on each other. Now, she’s uprooted again.
“The first time starting over was the worst thing ever,” she said. “I lost my only child. Then there’s all that grief trying to restart and come in here thinking, ‘Oh, I can finally breathe again.’ And then five months into it, really?”
One woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardizing her family’s housing situation, said she hasn’t gotten a letter to her home on the same Ervin Lane block where many others have. But she fears she’s next.
She worries for her six children, she said in Spanish over the noise of construction down the road where a crew was at work on two new homes on previously empty lots. She’s especially concerned about her youngest kids: twin three-year-old girls with special needs who get therapy in-home and at school.
Many residents who spoke with the Observer this week say they have few options to find housing quickly. For Robinson, the neighborhood’s mass removal could lead to homelessness.
Most of Robinson’s belongings are already gone, moved out over numerous trips to a storage unit in her van with help from family. Boxes in the living room contain more to be moved, including her granddaughter’s doll house.
Unless something works out faster, she’s acknowledges she may end up in a homeless shelter. A list of potential housing leads provided by the new landlords had nothing under $1,000, she said.
“I could probably sleep in my car but I’m not gonna have my granddaughter go through that,” she said.
Available help
Frustration was palpable at a community meeting Monday night at China Grove AME Zion Church, located across the street from the community.
Keesha White, who has lived in her four-bedroom house for more than six years, addressed the crowd Monday, describing the “mental and emotional distress” of finding a new place to live in Charlotte’s increasingly expensive rental market.
“What they’re doing is interrupting the stability of families,” she said.
The church’s pastor, David S. Cunningham, opened Monday night’s meeting, telling Sterling residents and church members that affordable housing hadn’t always a focus for him. It was a wake-up call when it arrived at the church’s front door.
“We cannot continue, brothers and sisters, to expand new development without a concrete plan to handle the needs of those who just cannot keep up with our city’s growth,” Cunningham told those gathered.
“We cannot continue to approve the agenda of overpriced housing and leave innocent people to defend for themselves.”
Representatives from the city of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County and several nonprofits attended Monday’s community meeting. DreamKey Partners, which administers local pandemic rent relief funds on behalf of the city and county, are working with Sterling residents, including help with arrears, deposits and utility payments.
Legal Aid of North Carolina is also available for residents. Several churches, including China Grove AME Zion, have offered to pay for three months of storage fees if people can’t immediately find housing.
But many wondered aloud what could be done to prevent this displacement in the first place.
On Tuesday morning, Charlotte City Council member Victoria Watlington, whose district includes this part of south Charlotte, wrote on Twitter: “What is happening in the Sterling community is a prime example of why homeownership matters. Why increasing density all over the city matters. Why a real anti-displacement plan matters.”
Blu South Single Family I LLC and related companies are tied to Greg Whitehead of Cornerstone Development, according to state business records.
When reached by phone, Whitehead told a reporter he would call back and quickly ended the call. He did not answer emailed questions, but wrote he was “an investor but (doesn’t) run the operation.”
A subsequent unsigned email from River Investment Properties refused to answer the same list of questions, citing “the inaccurate reporting and inconsistent image painted by the media.”
But nearby development offers clues of what’s to come.
Whitehead successfully applied to rezone property next door to the Sterling community, which are now Blu South Townhomes. More are under construction on the same parcel of land.
They now offer three bedrooms for rent starting at $2,445 that are “designed to be a place where the ambitious and the optimistic can thrive,” according to the website. The property has a private shuttle to the light rail, electric bicycles and dog park.
This story was originally published May 25, 2022 at 12:20 PM.
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