Rea Road / Elm Lane Rezoning Nightmare

Anyone who commutes into the SouthPark area daily from Union County (Waxhaw/Marvin/Weddington) area knows the traffic nightmare caused by Waverly on Providence. Many of those commuters now use Rea/Colony to get to work both Uptown and at SouthPark. 

The Gillespie Property zoned R-3 is the final holdout from development in an area that was once nothing more than Southern Mecklenburg County farmland.

The nearly 55-acre site has remained basically unchanged for the last three decades as Charlotte grew around it. Since the 1988 Calvary Church, The Shops at Piper Glen, TPC Piper Glen Golf Couse and the 815 homes and condos that surround the course have been built.

Now a developer wants to add more than 1100 rental units and towering apartment buildings. (Rezoning Petition 2022-121)

Charlotte City Council has a history of making really bad zoning choices. Steele Creek, W. T. Harris, Waverly on Providence and countless other approvals based on developers empty promises have been approved in the past with godawful results.

Accordingly, the Charlotte City Council will likely approve the zoning change for the Gillispie Property as they continue their efforts to build on the concept of density saturation that they have implemented across the city.

Yet current residents will suffer in ways that many will not understand until it is too late. 

Councilmembers will voice their belief that change is inevitable and taxpayers should expect and embrace this change. However, Piper Glen and other nearby property owners have the reasonable expectation that the character of their neighborhood will remain unchanged, and that the property zoned R-3 single family will remain zoned single family and not abruptly, on some misguided social agenda, become a towering multifamily rental complex.

Beyond the traffic, crime and congestion there’s the wear and tear on city streets that Charlotte can’t seem to handle now. Charlotte Solid Waste Services struggles to keep up with the current demand, delays are frequent and sometimes the catch-up of missed routes in South Charlotte goes on for several days.

CMPD has only two officers within the 30 square mile South Division 3 available at any given time. The US Postal Service is often forced to deliver mail in the 28277-zip code well after 7 PM because they don’t have enough staff. The streets are dirty, litter is everywhere, and potholes are as common as are panhandlers claiming to be homeless on every street corner.

Duke Energy has random power outages weekly in the area. The electrical grid is so fragil that it it like living in a third world country.

CMS students in South Charlotte are housed in temporary trailers that have been on site for 20 years.  In short, the area doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle the increase in traffic and residents.

The wildlife that calls this area home includes beavers, coyotes, and an abundance of deer, racoons, opossums, who have adapted to the incursion of suburbia admirably. However, it is doubtful that the Great Blue Heron rookery that exists just across Elm Lane will be as lucky. The pair of American Bald Eagles who have called Piper Glen home for the last two decades are also in jeopardy, as the development will come within 1000 feet of their home and completely destroy one of their preferred fishing ponds.

It is unconscionable to expect the area to “adjust” to greed and ignorance only to support council’s growth at any cost agenda. The property should remain zoned R-3 and be developed as a complement to Piper Glen and not another overcrowded group of concrete towers built in the name of progress and affordable housing.

Piper Glen is 850 acres with 815 homes and condos that's 1 home per acre. The developer and David Gillespie want to build 1,100 units on 53 acres more than 1/3 is wetlands. Thats a 2000% increase over the current area's character and that's nuts.