Board approves a Virginia builder’s 200-plus Lake Norman townhomes
Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney cast the deciding vote in favor of a Virginia builder’s planned 218 townhomes Monday night near a major connector highway under construction near Lake Norman.
Carney voted “yes” after the Mooresville Board of Commissioners split 3-3 on rezoning 50 acres for Reston-based Stanley Martin’s Gabriel Farms community on N.C. 115.
Board member Will Aven made the motion in favor of the rezoning. He said the project is consistent with town zoning rules and “a logical transition from a mixed-use development to the south.”
“If we slip commercial in there, it will feel like a big industry to neighbors,” Aven said.
During a public hearing before the vote, Langtree Road resident Paul Goldberg said traffic is already a mess from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Interstate 77 Langtree Road exit 31. “Langtree is just going to get worse,” he said.
Davidson lawyer Lawrence Shaheen, who represents Stanley Martin, said the developer agreed to millions of dollars in traffic improvements. Sidewalks will be added to Langtree Road, he said, and the project will mean $760,000 in additional tax revenue to the town.
No road will lead from the development onto or off busy N.C. 115, Shaheen told the commissioners. Rather, roads will connect to the Cove Church road off Langtree Road and a large development to the south of Gabriel Farms, he said.
Shaheen also said the project “is not as big as it could be, but one that we think everybody has been able to get to a middle ground on.”
“This is a product that Mooresville can be proud of,” he said.
In January, the Mooresville Planning Board recommended the rezoning to commissioners by an 8-0 vote.
Homes affordable to teachers, firefighters
Gabriel Farms will include “market rate” housing “that the teachers, firefighters and other critical workers of Mooresville will be proud to call home,” Shaheen wrote to a Mooresville planner in December.
The development also will have a pool and a clubhouse.
“These units will be a perfect entry point into the community for citizens and families of the Town of Mooresville,” Shaheen wrote. The company has not provided a price range for the homes.
Mooresville has a housing shortage, lawyer says
The 50-acre site is just south of Langtree Road and Mount Mourne Loop and just north of Mooresville’s East-West Connector, a four-lane divided highway under construction from Langtree Road to N.C. 115.
Jean Knox Manley, whose family owns the land and once planted soybeans, corn, alfalfa and peanuts on the acreage, said she considers Stanley Martin the best builder for the property.
“It’s sad for us,” Manley told the Board of Commissioners before its vote Monday, referring to selling the acreage that had been in her family for a century. “We loved it. But we feel like our grandparents, our mother, would be really proud of our choice of (developer) Stanley Martin.
“They are offering homes, not apartments, not condominiums,” Manley told the Planning Board. “They are offering a park site (and) two acres that can be a police station, a light rail station. They are offering a lot of open space. It is growth, but it’s low density, smart, and it’s planned growth.”
Mooresville has a housing shortage, Shaheen said in his letter to the town, and “the need for market rate housing is becoming more and more prevalent with each passing day.”
“We know that the goal of the Town of Mooresville is to provide and approve housing that meets the needs of the citizens,” he wrote. “Stanley Martin is committed to working in lockstep with the Town towards this goal, working to maintain Mooresville’s spot as the premier location to work and live in the region.”
The developer intends to complete the last of the townhomes in a first phase of the community by 2030, according to Planning Board documents.
The Cove Church backs the development
Construction will start in 1 1/2 to 2 years, representatives of the developer said Monday. A planned Mooresville fire station will serve that area, town officials said.
The nearby Cove Church “wholeheartedly” supports the project, Eric Johnson, a pastor at the church told the commissioners.
He called the project “a great fit for Mooresville development,” one that is “well thought-out, helps with connectivity, fits in with the aesthetics of the area and will be a great place to live.”
Commissioner Gary West expressed concern that the town originally envisioned the Gabriel Farms area as an employment hub, not for more homes.
“I truly believe the board needs a vision of what goes on down there,” commissioner Eddie Dingler said. “At some point, we need to know more.”
Carney told The Charlotte Observer he supported the rezoning because Gabriel Farms was part of the town’s application that secured a $16 million to $18 million federal grant for the $32 million East-West Connector. It wouldn’t have been right to now reject the long-planned development, he said.
This story was originally published April 7, 2026 at 4:09 PM.