Charlotte allows some landfills in residential areas. One neighborhood is fighting back
More than 100 Oakdale community residents overflowed a cramped room at the Mountain Island library branch on a cold December evening to confront their neighbor.
But the mood was anything but neighborly.
“Shame, shame and more shame to the Sanders family,” a voice says to developers in a video provided to The Charlotte Observer. “Your true colors are coming to the forefront and you are giving Oakdale the middle finger.”
The proposal in question would build a commercial landfill on a residential-zoned site owned by Sanders Partnership LLC. The site sits among a collection of neighborhoods between Brookshire Boulevard and Interstate 485.
The landfill won’t hold leftover food waste or other household refuse — it’s intended for construction companies to dump dirt and project debris. The landfill also will require an access road for trucks directly behind Pleasant Oaks Circle, a road with a couple dozen homes ranging from $200,000 to $300,000.
Neighbors worry about land and Mountain Island Lake contamination and how the landfill will affect their property values. The construction requires the demolition of a historic post office on the site, dating back to 1894, according to Carolana, a historical records site about the Carolinas.
The project site also is down the road from a different landfill for construction debris, now a dirt mountain near Kelly Road.
“They can grow to be 16 stories tall,” Charlotte City Councilman James “Smuggie” Mitchell said.
Mitchell, who was at the meeting, has been looking for an industrial zoned site that developers said they would consider instead, but he’s had no luck so far.
It’s a mistake to allow these landfills in residential-zoned areas, a law which hasn’t changed since 1959, Mitchell and others who spoke to the Observer said.
“In the 50s, 60s, 70s even up to the 90s if you were in this area and you needed to clean up some of your land, sure that makes sense,” Oakdale resident Robert Killian Jr. said. “In a residential R3 zoning area surrounded by family homes? That doesn’t make sense. It’s a commercial landfill.”
December meeting
Though the room in the library only could hold 44 people, 110 neighbors showed up for the Dec. 19 meeting. At points during the meeting, neighbors stood up, pointed and shouted at the Sanders family, which stood in a line at the front of the room, straight-faced and responding to their neighbors plainly when they could.
“It was so obvious how little the Sanders family cared about our opinions, really. That was blatantly obvious,” said Jessica Hoppe, an Oakdale resident whose property backs up to the site.
The developer was required to hold a public forum, Charlotte city spokesman Lawrence Corley III said.
A representative from Sanders Partnership, LLC, the listed owner of the property, refused to comment when contacted Friday afternoon. Steve Sanders, who lives on the property and is listed as a managing partner with the N.C. Secretary of State’s Office, did not return a phone call, email or text.
An employee of Sanders Utility Construction denied involvement in the project in person and on the phone.
A Sanders Utility email address for Will Leonhardt is listed in the applicant information, Corley said. Leonhardt is listed as the vice president on the Sanders Utility website, but an employee of the construction company told the Observer he retired.
“The state says under this zoning this use can be done,” Leonhardt said to residents in a video provided by a neighbor to the Observer.
What’s next?
Mitchell said he is meeting with a smaller group of neighborhood leaders Monday and looking at different sites zoned for industrial use that developers told him they would consider building on instead. Mitchell said Thursday he had not found a suitable site.
If they can’t find a different site for the landfill, developers are expected to apply for a permit. These specific landfills, however, do not require a zoning hearing. The only hurdle is North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality approval.
“This is a by right development which means the use is allowed in the zoning district,” Corley wrote in an email. “Since this is not a rezoning, no public hearing facilitated by City staff is required.”
For NCDEQ to approve the landfills they must meet 100-foot buffer requirements to residences and water supply wells. The department’s solid waste division has not spoken with the facility owner or representative and does not yet have a permit, according to public information officer Melody Foote.
Longer term, Mitchell says he’s asked the city’s transportation and planning committee to come up with language to prohibit these landfills in areas zoned for residential neighborhoods. The city did not change the zoning code when it approved its unified development ordinance in August.
“We just didn’t catch it,” Mitchell said.
Neighbors waiting, watching
Neighbors say they’ll wait to see what happens with a potential different location before presenting grievances to the NCDEQ.
What makes the prospect of a landfill sting more, Hoppe said, is that the developer is a member of their own community. He fought alongside them against a proposed townhome development coming to the neighborhood several years ago, Hoppe remembers.
To some Oakdale residents, a mountain of dirt and debris is far worse than new townhomes. The developers said they were going forward with the landfill because it was a good investment, and when questioned by neighbors at a public meeting, they consistently mentioned what they’re not required to do under NCDEQ’s requirements.
“People are definitely concerned not just in my neighborhood but the surrounding area given that this tends to point to a certain level of greed,” Killian said.
This story was originally published January 9, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
