Lake Norman townhomes rejected by board over traffic safety concerns
In a blow to a major developer, traffic concerns have snuffed out a plan for dozens of Lake Norman townhomes on a busy Mooresville road.
Blue Heel Development wanted to put 39 townhomes and a commercial building on nearly 5.2 acres on Williamson Road just north of Sundown Road, according to the developer’s plans.
The homes would have been “very similar” to those in the developer’s Towne Living at Washam Potts community in Cornelius, Matt Gallagher of Blue Heel Development told the Mooresville commissioners at their June 1 meeting.
Williamson Road Townhomes would have been geared to people looking to downsize but who still wanted to live in Mooresville at the lake, Gallagher said.
The project is allowed under town zoning rules, Patrick Werner, a Mooresville town planner told the commissioners. The rules were approved by a previous town board.
The developer asked commissioners to annex the development into the town and extend town utilities to the project.
But the current board of commissioners, and the one elected before it, have rejected projects that don’t, in part, include ways to address the traffic they’d add to already clogged roads.
Ex-Virginia DOT official speaks against project
The board on Monday, June 1, unanimously voted against annexing and extending utilities to the Williamson Road Townhomes project. The vote followed a public hearing where a former Virginia Department of Transportation official urged denial over traffic concerns.
Jerry Santoni, who lives near the project site, said he formerly managed the operations of VDOT’s statewide congestion management program.
He now serves on the Iredell County Planning Board, the Lake Norman Regional Transportation Commission and the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization. The CRTPO recommends road needs in Iredell, Mecklenburg and Union counties to the N.C. Department of Transportation.
“I’ve seen how speed, distance, land use decisions directly lead to congestion, crashes and tragic outcomes,” Santoni said.
He said the development “increases land use demand before traffic safety and (road) capacity are in place,” including the project’s planned right-in, right-out only access.
Santoni was the only resident to speak at the hearing. He said it’s still uncertain when the right-in, right-out access will be completed during NCDOT’s $52.6 million widening of Willamson Road.
He said safety in this case was a matter of physics, with drivers on a 45-mph road not being able to stop in time for the light.
“Adding dozens of new households and turning movements directly onto a short-distance, high-speed conflict zone would increase crash exposures at an already strained intersection,” he said.
Commissioner Dana Tucker said he couldn’t see approving the annexation when the commissioners are prohibited from putting traffic-safety and other conditions on their annexation approval. That’s because the zoning of the property is already in place. The other commissioners agreed.