Town Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, welcome everybody. It's uh on this nice day and uh it's it's gorgeous, gorgeous weather. It's a Monday, March 9th, 2026, 7 p.m. Uh and again, welcome. Um looks like uh we have a few missing tonight. So, we do have a quorum. Uh Darcy and uh um and and Ellen not here. Uh Darcy may be coming in uh later, but Ellen will not be here. Uh can I get us to stand and say the pledge of allegiance? I

pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have a few uh additions or deletions on to the to the agenda. Um I'll read the ones I have and if you have others, let me know. Okay, guys. Uh we're going to take out uh in the consent agenda item 10D. We're taking that out. Uh that will be that's going to be off the agenda totally.

It'll be off the agenda totally and we'll probably bring that back in April. Uh so it's not going to be discussed tonight. Okay. 10D. Okay. Um we will take out also um we're not going to discuss um 11 11B uh consideration of the website. We're going to take that off. That'll be next month as well. So that that goes um 12B uh the consideration of park and events advisory board that's going to be taken out that will be in April as well or sometime in between that that's that has that will be determined so we'll see when that is but that's not going to be discussed tonight. So there'll be those items there. Um,

I make a motion we approve the amended agenda. Okay. Before we approve that, let's just make sure. Okay, that's what I Okay. Um, yeah. And that that is all. Can I get a motion to approve? Motion's on the table. Well, it it's a motion for for approval. You approve the uh as the uh the motion as presented. All in favor.

All in [clears throat] favor? All in favor? It's unanimous. Okay. The uh conflict of interest statement in accordance uh with state law is the duty of every council member to avoid conflicts of interest. Does any council member have any known conflict of interest with respect to any matter or matters on the agenda? If so, please identify the conflict and refrain from any participation in the matter involved. Okay. No conflicts. Um, mayor council reports. Anybody have anything to uh share? Tom will

all I have is I did get a response back from Millia Helms at DOT that the road paving contract review of uh the contracts it's out. It has not they have not come back approved yet. So they will let us know when they are approved and we know exactly what streets will get repaving in the sometime near future. and I'll let Karen Dwey know that when I receive it. Okay. Anything uh in particular with Wilma this time this month? WMA?

Oh, Wilma, I'm sorry about that. We had the meeting and we discussed [snorts] uh Weddington watch that concept was brought up to the uh the other members. the we also had a presentation from the American Legion uh baseball organization asking if any of the towns wish to contribute some funding of $2,000 uh to their organization so they can keep the cost to their players at a minimum. I believe there's 18 players they pick up on the senior team. They'll have a junior team also that will be headquartered out of Marvin Ridge High with their coach there, but the players will be over from Union County as will the senior team and they'll play all their games at Wing. It's a summer league that is [clears throat] intended to play during the week and not compete with what they call travel ball and be very expensive, inexpensive and uh o make it more open to to more people.

[clears throat]

So there was request for that and there was a request for us to look at Wuma to look at the idea of petitioning the county and the Lancaster water system to remove fluoride from the water. [clears throat] That's been a push on their part. I think the county is has already done that on the eastern part of the county and uh but our water in the western part of the county comes from Lancaster and Lancaster has not so far agreed to do that. So those those were the the items that came up and let me tell you the next meeting is going to be in April. Make sure I tell you the right on the 23rd 4 pm and it shows it will be at Stallings Town Hall 4 o'clock.

Okay, it's awesome. Cool. Sorry about that. I'm new to the WMA board so you No problem. Some of these things. Cool. Thank you, Tom. Clayton, anything you want to add or Nothing from me, mayor.

Okay. Awesome. Okay. Public uh public comments. We'll go into that. that part of it. Uh before we get into this, I want to read read our our statement here. Uh public comments are limited to four minutes. Public hearings are limited to three minutes. Comments are to be directed at the entire board and not individuals or the public attending the meeting. If someone turns and starts addressing the public, uh I will stop you and if you continue on, I will you will have to shut down. We'll end that uh public comments are limited to those who are uh to those that are gerain to and within the jurisdiction of the town. Topics that are removed or impertinent from the business of the board shall be prohibited. Additionally, public comments shall not be on topics that have not uh have not an allocated or specific public hearing time. Instead, public comments are limited to those that do not have allocation time or under the public hearing. I'm gonna read that sentence again. Instead, public comments are limited to those that do not have allocated time under a public hearing. A designated spokesperson for a group of three or more may be allocated six minutes to speak. At least three members of the group must be present and names and addresses of those members present must be submitted to the town council or the town clerk before the meeting begins. Other than pursuant to this rule, you may not give your time to another speaker to increase that speaker's allotted time. You must be civil in your language, presentation, and act within reasonable standards of courtesy. Use of slander, name calling, uh personal attacks or threatening speech or behavior is prohibited.

The audience must maintain order and decorum in their conduct. Please refrain from disruptive applause, comments, or disorderly speaking during the meeting. uh disturbances that disturb the order of and the quorum of the meeting will be prohibited. The mayor or the majority of the board may suspend these rules at their discretion. Failure to abide these rules uh after notice by the mayor may result in one termination of your comment period or two removal from the meeting altogether. First one up uh Bob come on up. Good evening. I will be brief, which is not my normal mo. [laughter] My name is Bob Griswald. I live in Wellington Woods 4 and five. I do just want to say to the board, we have a situation in our neighborhood with a resident that's not adhering to either our HOA covenants and bylaws or the ordinances of the town of Weddington. What I want to say to the board that we don't as residents probably say nearly often enough, thank you. The board is engaged. The board is involved. Greg, Karen, Karen, Union County Law Enforcement. Very impressive to see the team come together and help our neighborhood with what is a pretty serious problem. Clayton is our rep and you know, you might be aware of some of it as well. So again, we don't say it often enough. Thank you for the the work and the help

and [clears throat] thank you. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Chad going up.

Good evening, Chad Emmerion, Eagle Road. Thank you, council members. I wanted to reiterate my concerns for Keystone tonight. I don't believe it fits with the character and harmony of Weddington prior land use plan. This project has been a mess from the beginning. The sharet had no yield plan as required. Two community meetings since the first one was not performed properly. Two meetings with the planning board due to missing appendix 2 items still passed to town council with some items. Multiple times in front of town council since things changed from the planning board. We still do not have clarification if it accurately meets our UDO for open space and storm water verified by Labella as council had directed for all projects. We do not need projects to go through the process like this. If approved, this could very well end up back here like a Beckingham situation. All of these changes and updates were designed to make sure no projects, especially conservation neighborhoods, are done right. Yet, here we are. In addition, we had Morris Farms pass with eight, I mean, eight conditions. We can't have this anymore. How can we ensure this does not happen again? Do we clearly understand what you might be approving tonight? A project as small as eight lots should have the same scrutiny as one with 80 lots because neighbors will be impacted either way. We don't want residents to be negatively impacted by projects that are not 100% vetted. The second thing I wanted to mention is the Grand View proposal. This seems like a marked improvement over the Beachwood proposal that was on the site and the Jones proposal that had a sidewalk and cheret. I did want to call out that it does not have the required two points of ingress and egress, but looks like that could be added in place of the community access between lots 27 and 28, I think is what it is. The point of having two points of ingress and egress is not just for emergency vehicles, but for

residents safety and ease of traffic flow. Beachwood had two points and it met the UDO. In addition, I encourage council to look at uh and the developer to look at the maps of the railroad extension. If you look at the changes of how the left turns are navigating around that property, it'll be very difficult to get in and out of an entrance. Thank you.

Thank Thank you, Chad. Uh Christopher Ne. Christopher Neve 110 Chase Court. Um, regarding Keystone, I just wanted to express that um, I have talked to some of the residents in that area. I myself personally as well as um, what I hear from residents, I'm not in favor of the Keystone development as it's being proposed. Um, most people in town know that I am a proponent for 1acre lots. Uh, that's what Weddington was founded to be. Uh, our UDO states that we should maintain our residential rural character. Um, this project has halfacre lots. Um, if we were to go back to sticking to our town's founding values of making sure that developers knew upfront that oneacre lots um, was what we wanted to see for our town, that would solve a lot of the issues and concerns that the residents have, which is whether it be overcrowding issues in the school, whether it be storm water runoff issues that a lot of residents currently are seeing the negative effects of because of RC RCD developments that are being crunched in. you're disturbing a lot of land in a very condensed and confined area. It also does not give the presentation and feel that residents would like to see. We're taking out a lot of trees because you're having halfacre lots. Oftent times you're clearing a lot of trees in a small space and it disrupts again the character that Weddington is supposed to have which is that residential uh and rural character. Um, also I feel and you know we'll see how the vote goes tonight, but a lot of residents including myself are concerned that a lot of decisions are being made prior to residents being made aware that a development is coming. I believe that uh decisions are being made, conversations are happening with developers and then all of a sudden the public is hearing about it and we're being told we have public comments. But um I'm I'm getting the feeling that

decisions are already being made in advance and that's not right to the residents who um who we're supposed to be representing and putting before uh the developers. And so I would like to see engagement even beyond the development whether it be park the park that we've heard almost nothing about. It is mentioned on occasion but as far as the plans um we're told that we want residents to speak to it but we're left in the dark about what's actually happening. Often times we hear that council members say, "Well, if it's going to raise taxes, I'm not in favor of it, but at the same time, the actions seem that we're moving forward. We spent $100,000 on the plans already." Again, residents are wondering what are those plans. Yes, they're visible on the website, but we didn't get to speak to what was shared with Lebella as far as what the town wanted for that park. We didn't get to say if we wanted an amphitheater, not an amphitheater. If we want um swings, not swings, a walking trail, not a walking trail. three acres behind the Harris ter um and tucked in between the Harris ter and weddings of Matthews Road. So, we as residents didn't get to speak to that, but we feel that decisions are being made prior to us even hearing about them. So, that's a concern that I have as well. So, just wanted to share that tonight. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Christopher Johnson, am I allowed to ask questions? You can. We don't normally one question. Yes, sir. Uh with regard to halfacre lots and RCD, are you familiar with the state statute on down zoning? Yes, sir. And what's your understanding of what that statute says?

My understanding is that you cannot um essentially limit basically allow um less homes to be able to be developed on a piece of property. Um and we are currently doing it. And I hear people say that we can't down zone, but um with the um new changes that were made that the planning board's been making as far as um looking at the buildable property and putting that information in, we are doing a form of downzoning by even continuing to move forward with that, which I'm in favor of that by the way. Um, but we are saying, well, now as you put together your plan for what how many houses would be able to be on here if they were all one acre, we're also saying, but less h homes can because we're re-evaluating uh that element of the unbuildable land um within that piece of property. So, that is a form of downzoning. So, we are currently doing it, but so it seems like at times we say that we should um we use conditional zoning when we want to. Um, we're I I'm in favor of a lot of the changes being made to the UDO as um for developers. I think that's great, but it's still not by zoning. So, I feel like we're picking and choosing when we want to or what we want to say to one resident. Well, we can't because we might get sued. And there may be an element of truth to that, but we still have conditional zoning in Weddington. So, I think it's right to make it known upfront to the developers what we would like to see. And step one should be oneacre lots.

You should uh don't take my word for it, but double check. It basically says if this already is zon RCD conservation halfacre lots, you can't make it one acre lot. State law prohibits that, but you can double check it. But we're we also are telling developers whether we want to see additional floor plans uh larger floor plans on homes that they're developing. And so if we're able to tell the developer what size home we want to see, um I think that that can be a little bit of a gray area as well. My point is this. If it's sown for RCD halfacre lots, you can't change it to one acre lots. That's a taking. Don't take my word for it. You can look at the statute, but that's my understanding of the statute. Yes, sir. Thank you.

All right. Okay. [snorts] Uh Christopher Thompson. Welcome.

Oh, it's my first time. All right. I'm Chris Johnson, 190 Walden Lane. Um it's two parts. My first concern is um a swell that exists on 3009 property which is right by the uh road. It collects all the storm water from that side of the road and feeds that storm water underest lawn onto the front quarter of my property. I imagine that it's been grandfathered in because several people have owned that piece of property before where it was primarily farmland and not necessarily residential, but through a succession. I've now come to uh possess this piece of property and when storm water runoff accumulates on the other side, it comes down across the front corner of my property and has washed a significant amount of soil. and I've had to spend thousands to create a moat around the perimeter of my property. The purpose for me bringing this to your attention is Keystone is going to now come in and build 11 homes, roofs, paved surfaces, less available land to absorb storm water runoff. The bottom of our neighborhood, we have a retention pond. That retention pond sees all that water. With the advent of more hard surfaces, less absorptive surfaces, that storm water is going to be in greater concentration, come down through our dishes, and stands to pollute our pond, which becomes our problem, Walden Lane Association's problem. I'm trying to get ahead of this. I would like to have it addressed. To date, I don't think there's been a hydrarology, any type of examination to to find out how the water is absorbed, where it flows to other than

here it is. I've tried to address this in the past. Um, in fact, I've sent emails uh probably to one of you guys. I'm sorry. And uh it kind of got kicked to NC DOT because the pipe goes underneath the the property. But now that we're changing hands, I guess you guys settled February 27th on that with uh Mr. Helms. I don't know. It's public record. It's been it's been settled. So apparently somebody Well, that's a whole other conversation. Uh anyway, we need to address this water. Uh it's going to wash out our street. It's going to pollute our ponds and it's going to make a bigger problem for a later uh at a later time. The other thing I wanted to address in my last minute of of speech here is um the fabric of Weddington. I've been a resident here for about five years, maybe a little bit more if you count previous tenure before moving back fourth from the northeast. The fabric of this town is what draws people here. And the people that have decided to set roots in this area did so for a particular reason. What I've noticed is a number of builders, not singling out anyone in particular, coming in making a huge cash grab, stealing land. And when I say stealing, I mean paying pennies for what should be dollars for land to develop these high density neighborhoods that have a negative long-term effect on our quality of life. I say that being a father of two children who are involved in softball and baseball where there aren't enough fields to field all the kids to play the the games and it just seems to be an increasing problem with the amount of of

people coming to the area. I think it's in our best interest to slow it down. I'm not saying cut it off because people own land, they need to sell land. They have future plans, but we need to be more aware of maintaining that one acre building lot and being more concerned with how things look in terms of the presentation of of the neighborhood. What I'm seeing right now is just a whole bunch of Legos being just jammed into a space with no character. And in in short time, if I may interject, it's been four minutes. Four minutes. I'm sorry. 4:30. I'm sorry.

I'll give you I'll give you 10 seconds if you want to stand up. All I wanted to say is that I think we should all pay closer attention to what we're doing here because we all moved here for a reason. You all love Weddington. We want to maintain the quality of life here. Great. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Uh, Tim Petri.

Thank you. Tim Petri, 345 Walden Lane. Um, same neighborhood as Chris, across from the Keystone development. Um I, you know, sim similar concerns of a lot of the things that I've heard already about the development, but I was recently, um I think drawn that the attention was drawn to me about the the water impact on the front of the property. I didn't realize how much of that was coming from across the street, across the road, coming through his property. I see it coming down. I'm further back in the neighborhood, so I'm driving that road up and when we get storms, see all that storm water going down. I live on the pond. Um, and that's a concern that uh the water issues are addressed, not only the long term, but also the short term with the construction, the runoff, the the dirt. It's not a or the mud. Um, it's not a large pond. It's not a deep pond, but we have fish in the pond. um and want to make sure that that's protected. Um uh I think um one of the things that we had a neighborhood meeting yesterday to talk about some of these things that we would like to see if this project does move forward um taking the water coming across the street away, having it pushed back to the other side down the the hill to the creek be beyond uh behind it. um uh just because of the impact that we already have from that property. And if this moves forward, I think it will only get worse. And that's our concern. A lot of our concerns um is just the impact of that water um on the neighborhood, on the road, on Chris's property, and on our pond.

Thank [clears throat] you. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Petri. Tracy Stone. Tracy Stone, Longleaf Court. I want to remind you that the people of Weddington do not want a park. I found another park to add to my list, downtown Waxaw Park. So, there are at least 44 parks within 30 minutes of town hall. The residents want it so little that for a sevenperson committee, as of the retreat, only four people applied. There's very little interest. The Wesley Chapel mayor said to me, "You don't want to park." A Marvin Councilman said that everything costs twice as much as you think it will. A survey quoted in Real Simple magazine found that only 22% of people spend time in nature at least once a week. Why would you create something for 22% of people? Being between the backside of a shopping center and a busy road is not really nature anyway. Where are the plans for this park? When do we get to see them? Are they on the town website? If not, why not? Do you need to have the park committee in place to apply for a grant? Is this how you plan to pay for it? What happens when that grant runs out? How can taxes not go up? I see it being an invitation for unwanted [clears throat] behaviors and liabilities for the town. This could create something more for the deputies that we didn't need to do. So, we'll end up needing more deputies. It will create negative financial pressures that are unwanted and unneeded. Please, no park for Weddington.

Okay. That includes our comment time. Um, Deputy Flyer, come on up. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Johnson. I am Deputy Flower. I'm one of the Weddington contracts for the town of I'll get you to speak closer to the mic if you don't mind.

I'm not as tall as everybody else, [laughter] so it's been a challenge my whole life. So, I have nothing major to report for the month of February, which is amazing to say. Um we believe through our proactive measures that we've really, you know, across the board had crime go down. Uh some of those measures are preventive patrols. We had just under 700 for the month of February. That's driving in your streets, your neighborhood, looking at your houses, making sure everything's safe, no suspicious vehicles. We also had 85 traffic stops for the month of February. That's mainly trying to get speeders. Um, I know I'm out on Providence almost every morning trying to get people to slow down. I know that's one of our biggest complaints. We also have, and this is my third meeting, harped on these security checks. It's a free tool homeowners of Weddington to tap into. We have forms on the town of Weddington's website and the sheriff's office website. You fill it out when you're going on vacation and you get a deputy checking on your house while you're not there. It's just a nice tool and peace of mind to use, you know, when you're away from the house. So, it's all I got for you. Nothing.

That's it. That's that's good. Um, as we talked earlier, I just want to mention this uh you know, warm weather's coming and uh it's it's nice and pretty outside. Uh Deputy May called me a couple weeks ago that uh this happened now in Wesley Chapel. It's happening in different areas. I've heard it's happened over close to the Y over here. uh kids want to ride their bikes, ebikes on the streets, on the main highways, not not your neighborhoods, but the main highway and uh four-wheelers getting in large group and uh there was a potential almost a street takeover in Wesley Chapel a couple weeks ago and uh when uh they got the 911 and everybody got there that everybody scattered except a few of them and they you know gave them I guess I guess a good talking to I guess but uh he wanted to u rehass iz the point that uh that's highly illegal. It's not safe. And when you're riding your your your bike and your you know child out on the streets and you know these large 15 20 people together it's becoming a street uh road takeover and um not only if you're if you're caught he he wanted me to mention to everyone that if you're caught the child will have to go through the uh the juvenile justice system. So point obviously we want to try warning first. We don't just want to, you know, immediately try to throw them into the system, right? Like,

right, our first option would be a warning. Um, education and warning. You know, some kids, whether it be through, you know, lack of knowing or just whatever the reason may be, they just may not know. You know, we don't want the kids inside on PlayStations all day, right? We want them to get outside. We want them to have fun, right? But our main concern is their safety and and motor safety as well. Um, they're not making these ebikes, you know, neon green and bright pink like our bikes used to be. you know, they're all black and they're kind of hard to see sometimes and one darts out in the road, you might not have enough reaction time. We just want them to be safe. So, yeah. No, and where I was going with this, you know, uh these are this this is what can happen. And uh he was even informing me informing me that the uh the parents could be charged with a misdemeanor for the child doing what they they were doing

in the most extreme case. Yes, sir. Obviously, we want to try measures before that. Yes. But we do not want straight takeovers in Wington. No, sir. And we don't want to get any, you know, we so we want to be strictly, you know, we don't want we don't want that happening here. Yes, sir. So, thank you. No problem. I'll put this back up to normal people. [laughter] Okay. The uh

Yes. Uh we're excited to have uh uh Mill Graham uh Graham Enterprises uh presenting u new project for the town um Grand View. So uh whoever wants to come up, I'll let you guys come up and sort of, you know, present and take the time you need and whatever you want to do. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Appreciate it. And Deputy Plower, I got the opposite problem. I can't get things tall enough. So, how's that? Here we go. All right. Thank y'all for the opportunity to share my vision for Grand View. Um we think uh that this Can you tell us where where you're located where?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. The corner of Providence and Ray Road, a very visible location there obviously that we're all pass every day and have seen past at least I have for decades. Uh so the corner's been there a long time and had a lot of different things proposed and uh we think that we have the right solution for such a very uh visible corner. uh next few minutes we're going to try to share our vision with you and uh give you kind of a glimpse of uh the quality and what we intend for Grand Boo. With me um I have Brent Cowan with Isaac's Engineering uh who's doing all the engineering on this project. Very familiar of course here in Weddington with working with the planning and and staff. Have Lisa Gaffne who's a biologist who's worked with us for months on the trees uh to meet the tree ordinance and go through all the trees and then I have a a friend and somehow I'll introduce a few minutes Jeremy Shoemaker with Arcadia Homes. So, we're going to give you a little glimpse of some of the homes that we intend there as well. So, that's my team should any questions come up. We tried to come prepared. Going to try to be respect your time and be efficient and and get through it pretty quickly. So, let me go to the next slide if I could. Jeremy's handling the clicker there. All right. Thanks. So, uh, again, the corner of Proance and Ray Road, all of us are familiar with the, uh, the new proposed Ray Road extension and all that's going on there. U, the entrance here is proposed, uh, right opposite of Old Mill Road as you can see on the plan on the screen. Uh, 37 lots total. These are all one acre lots or bigger. Uh we tried to go the opposite direction here and just do you know extra large lots for for extra big footprint sort of continuation of what I did at Long View except for the most part these were even bigger than the estate lots at Long View. U and

we're continuing with the same idea for privacy and for quality. Uh the property lends itself really well. U there's no real drainage issues or concerns. We're not impacting any neighbors. Um, of course Brent has to go through all the requirements to meet town requirements and state requirements, but most of this property all drains naturally back to the wooded wetlands area that all stays completely untouched. Um, the state took care of what little drainage goes towards Provenence Road and Ray Road. Uh, the state of course engineered all that and all of that is in place currently. So, uh I don't we're not foreseeing any any impacts any neighbors or anybody concerning drainage. Uh the the project is uh let's go to the entrance. I guess we could. Yeah. We're intended to make it gated uh to be a gated of course private streets, private community. The gate house is built such that it it's not intended to be manned 24 hours like long view unless the future residents in HOA would like to do that. U if somebody was having a an anniversary party or something and wanted to have their own person there for the neighborhood to let the proper guest in and out, you know, that's it's it's built to where it could house that. But it's not intended to be a 247 gated manned uh gate house like we like we have at Long View, but it is going to be obviously done well. It's going to be done nice with really really high quality landscaping and uh very very quality monumentation and uh it'll be it'll be controlled ultimately by the homeowner association. If they decide they want to put a person there, that would be up to them. All right, the next slide. Um, this is a top view. It's it's kind of hard to see

at this scale, but it's it's a top view and you're looking at that's Ray Road along Ray Road and and then Providence would would turn at the top of the screen, but we're just trying to show the improvements and I got another slide coming up that'll do a better job on Pro like the entrance.

Oh, that's Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Jeremy. You're right. Yep. Sorry. Wrong one. That's Yeah, this is looking at Providence entrance and you we're showing the monumentation coming down Providence Road behind and that this will show you much better. Yeah, that's much [laughter] as they say a picture says a thousand words, right? It's uh so we're going to carry monumentation and fencing and uh as all of us that pass it every day, we know that the way the state left that there's an embankment um and they did a pretty nice job of setting out the oak trees. There's oak trees every whatever 60 80 feet I think Brent. So our intention is to work with the bank that's there. We will of course add uh irrigation enhance it you know make it green make it pretty make it maintainable make it mowable. U we will do uh nice monumentation at the entrance and carry that for a distance. And then at the top of the slope um is where we will enhance. We'll add a lot of additional nicel looking landscaping. Of course, we're leaving the 100 foot uh undisturbed buffer all the way around Providence Road and Ray Road. Um what we may ask with with with planning and with you guys you gentlemen ladies if that would be uh would be if go into that area maybe 15 20 feet. It's woolly. What you see going down prominence road is just unkept unmaintained. It just is woolly. So what we would like to do is go in and maybe clear 15 20 feet of that to be able to put something much much better like this on the front edge of it. Um, but that's that's that's our vision that that that's that's that would be looking this would be looking from our entrance Providence Road south headed towards Waxaw is what this this view would be.

Yeah. At the corner, um, that's a challenge. My goodness, that corner, the state has left a mess there. You can see some of it. This is a real picture that was taken. um you've got so many guywires and foam poles and I don't own all the way to that corner that they they retained a big um rideway area for power uh drainage all kinds of things going on. So, we're going to have to get, you know, whatever we do, permission from DOT, work with them, and we would like to tie some sort of nice, you know, corn corner monumentation into our our perimeter fencing and landscaping that goes down both roads. But there's so much going on there, we're just going to have to work with all the different groups we got to work with. Mainly, it would be UN is it union power? Yeah, Union Power and DOT. Um we have proposed the sidewalk um currently is what you see here. This is reality to the corner but it does not exist going up Ray Road and that uh the request of of some members of the planning board and and folks it's been asked of us if we would continue the sidewalk on up Ray Road which we will do and we're proposing to do as as shown here. So don't hold me to this because we don't control the corner. We don't control all that right away. Um, we're going to make it look absolutely the best that we humanly possibly can given the restrictions and all the the things that we have to work around. But that's uh that's an idea for you. Okay. Coming in to Long View, uh, excuse Long View, Grand View. As you come in through the gates and the main entrance, there's a s a center park area uh for the community. And it's designed uh this it's actually pretty good size. It's about the length of a football field.

It's it's pretty large area. in the intent is to provide some really nice green space, open space for residents to be able to walk and walk dogs and have a place to come and get the mail. And it's uh it's sloping. The property there is not level and flat. So, we're having to do it in two different tiers. We're going to do like a retaining wall like we show here and have two different levels and and so it'll have two, you know, different level tier surfaces. Uh but it's going to be a nice place just for people to come and gather. uh we we want you know a lot of people these days love to walk their dogs. A lot of people like to walk for exercise. This is something that we could implement in that area. This is just simply like in in the concrete. It's for different yoga stretches and exercises along the the park area. A wellness station where you just do some simple stretching and whatnot before a run or a walk is an idea that we would do. And then within that park, we're going to do a gathering place uh like the gazebo type area where somebody could go in the afternoon. They could have a wine and cheese party. They could have an anniversary party. Just people within the community just have a nice gathering spot. In in this same uh park area that's not not shown in this in this drawing. We'll have the mailbox gazebo. We can't have mailboxes anymore. uh we have to do a a mailbox collection area. So, we'll do a nice structure that'll be, you know, similar in architecture and match that's kind of part of this park complex on the back side where people will be able to pull over and get their mail or [clears throat] walk through the community and come if they're out for an afternoon walk and get the mail and just have a nice gathering spot and a nice focal point. Um years ago I did a similar one of these in the U village section at Long View. Uh that's been very well received and it works

extremely well. It's it's just a nice visual focal point to have that big green space in the middle. And on the back side of that arch on that radius in that big gap between the two lots between what would be lot number four and five is where we intend to do the mailbox uh kiosk. So it's sort of out of sight, out of mind, but a couple of places wide enough for cars to pull over and get their mail and have a nice roof over it. So it's, you know, so it's dry. And the uh walking trail that we are are going to propose to do through the community would start at that mailbox kiosk and go on one side or the other of that retention pond through the through a wooded area and then it'll come back into the community in that in that little gap you see coming into the other culde-sac. So, it'll be a nice like like that simmers this a nice natural walking trail within the the the gates and security of the community and just a great place for people to be able to circulate and make a complete walk around the whole community using either the sidewalks within the community or uh the walking trail that goes back through the natural area. Um, all right, houses. This I'm going to introduce Jeremy. Jeremy Shoemaker of course with Arcadia Homes. Uh Jeremy's a great friend. I partnered with them for many years going all the way back to uh Long View and of course uh you know one of the greatest custom builders not only here locally but in in [clears throat] the country. So I asked uh Jeremy to pull together some uh glimpses front elevations, rear elevations of the type homes that we believe will be likely be built here. And no better nobody better to explain it than uh than Jeremy himself. Yeah.

Um, like M mentioned, I'm with Arcadia and we've we've been fortunate to be working in this part of Union County in and around Weddington and Marvin and this entire area for uh shoot about 25 years, including since the beginning of Long View and, uh, a lot of lot of the neighborhoods within Weddington. So, uh, [clears throat] not only very familiar with, but love being a part of the community and love building this community. And so Mel and I wanted to come up with um you know conceptually how we expect the architecture and the homes and the caliber um to to be it is going to be a fully custom home neighborhood. So what we're showing you here is not that we're going to have hey these plans and these elevations and this is what we're going to build. These are again conceptual depictions of what we expect to see. Although every single home will be one of one. every single home building in this community will be a fully custom home that will never that has never been built and will never be built again. Um, but we we wanted to demonstrate kind of the architectural theming that we expect to see and and our thought process is that we we want and this is similar to Mel's original vision with Long View. Uh we want all of the homes to be rooted in authentic architecture and likely uh European architecture and that can be you know French country and English cottage and a lot of other variations but it uh rooted in authentic European architecture. There's so many variations of that. There's revival forms of that that can be a little more modernized so to speak which there's not going to be uh overly contemporary homes in there but there'll be homes that have a little bit more of a modern feel to it. Um, but you'll see in the depiction, like you'll see with some of the uh doors and windows here, it's got a little bit more of a current and modern feel, but that's still a, you know, a French provincial revival architecture. It's always going to be something that still has a very, very timeless feel. And you can see that we expect them to be, you know, really, really well done, really well designed. Um, we also want to demonstrate that while there will be architectural

guidelines and there will be an architectural theming that will anticipate or that will everyone have to adhere to, um, we don't want it to feel like every home is the same style or the same colors and the same materials. There's going to be plenty of diversity in the materials, but they all must be rooted in authentic European architecture.

So, going through just a [clears throat] number of other few examples. Again, we want to demonstrate the diversity, but um what the calling card is going to be is authentic architecture and authentic execution. Then this gives a little bit of a depiction of again the caliber of a lot of the interiors that we expect. Um of course, uh like most neighborhoods, the architectural review board isn't going to dictate exactly what has to occur on the inside. um just more of a depiction of what we would anticipate where some of them leaning modern based upon what we're seeing the market uh is is desiring these days and sometimes a little bit more transitional like that and then a little bit more traditional like this and so plenty of diversity but um the continuity of execution and quality and authenticity. Now, are are is Arcadia are you guys the exclusive builder of the in the neighborhood or is there others as well? I guess that's more of a male question.

That's more of a more [laughter] that's more of a more of a male question. Yeah. Yeah, that is our intention, but full disclosure, we haven't finalized our agreement yet, but that's the way we're headed and we we expect that to be the case. We we both want that to be the case. We both uh know each other well enough to know that we're going to get there, but but to his point, not a fungic

we want this to be a you know a landmark project for Weddington for us a signature project so we want you know I wanted to bring to the table the best of the best uh you know the best development team which we think is us and the best custom builder and and certainly not in only in the Charlotte market but anywhere in the US I'd put Jeremy and Arcadia you know up against anybody so trying to bring both barrels loaded get the ball out of park I We would like very much for this to become Wedington's poster child project because everybody's going to see it. Everybody's going to pass it and and we got to do it right. Right. And that's that's what we're known for and that's what we intend to do. Yeah. And and go ahead. Don't I'm sorry. Go ahead.

One question came up earlier from the gentleman Chad I think maybe it was second entrance. We go. Was that go back to that slide number 12? I think it was the site plan. body's going back. But a comment was made that we didn't provide a second entrance. And this is probably more of a planning board issue. Uh but we we don't believe that a second entrance is actually required. Uh but we're not going to try to argue that. I know the planning board and others would like to have it. Uh we can't we can't provide it. Some of the other plans that were referred to were bogus plans. They never would have been approved and never would have worked to begin with. Uh so in reality, this plan works. uh DOT will likely not grant a second entrance that close to the railroad intersection. So what we are working on and once again I don't have it firm at this point but I'm working with the Hudson family and you see that the one little road that stubs out between uh lots I think it's 27 and 28. I'm actually naming that little stub street Hudson Farm Road. And our intention, you can see very faintly in the in off the the off the lots, right behind the lots, that's the Hudson's existing gravel driveway that goes in and it almost touches my property line. So, I have requested of them to let me put up a breakaway gate uh that would serve as a secondary emergency entrance should it ever be needed. the chances of an emergency happening at the same time that our entrance would be totally blocked for some reason is somewhere between slim and none. But uh nevertheless, I've heard the request and we believe that we will achieve that as as shown here.

Gotcha. Yeah. C can you have that before you go to the plane? You know what you're going to do? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'd intended to try to have it to eat in the tonight, but I'm now out of the country and in fact been on a airplane and been flying since 4:00 a.m. this morning. So, sorry I'm a little dehydrated and a little horse. I hear [laughter] you. Yeah. Um, just one comment, Mr. Graham. I [clears throat] kind of had the same concern that Mr. Emerine did and I went to your your town meeting uh your

Yes, sir. meeting and actually I think I expressed to someone over there the same concern about not having a second entrance and yes sir I understand the do issue with being too close to the intersection. I'm I hope you can work out something with the Hudsons to get temporary or not temporary but at least an easement there so that first responders can get there in an emergency because while it may be unlikely, right, stuff happens. Yeah, Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law happen. So, well, that is our full intent to to do that. I'm glad you and the Hudsons have been receptive, but again, full disclosure, I don't have an actual agreement with them yet, but we intend to. That's that's our intent.

Okay. And it's a natural I mean, it's already there. It's perfect, right? Well, it's I hope you're successful in doing that. Yes, sir. Thank you. I do have one question. Being it's going to be an old mill, will there be a lane coming from the south into this property? That's you're coming up from the south. Coming up from assume that's a DOT. That's a DOT thing. But there's already a left. There's already come out of old Mill turning north. Yeah. Headed north. turn into turn into nowhere now.

But but it'll be a turn into here because when we put ours in we Yeah, there he's got the mouse going right there. But we will do we'll do some lane widening or tapering, whatever DOT requires at our entrance. But yeah, if you go out there now, there's an existing left turn northbound headed turning into our project. It's set up perfectly even though there's nothing there. Correct. Yeah, I think right now it's intended. There's actually a little U-turn carve out kind of I think I turn we can we can't put it on the big screen, but we can show you on the phone screen if you want [laughter] down the road how that is.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is set up for a left turn already. We got cutins coming from the north coming into

Yeah. From the Yeah. Coming from the north down. We'll do it just a cut in and then you know you can immediately pull off and in our entrance and we push the gates way way back to give us stacking distance so you don't have cars you know backing up. DOT was going to require that anyhow we actually I think we went exceeded what they were required in all cases. We're trying to not only meet the town ordinances but we're trying to you know exceed and excel in every way we can. We're trying to make this a painless, easy situation ultimately for the board, for the planning board, for the staff. You know, we're we're trying not to come and ask for anything. We're trying to meet uh every single requirement and then some.

Did you say just will DOT require a light there? I don't I don't think so. Not for a community this small. Um I don't think so. Okay. Um now the the landscaping down 16 you showed it you mentioned earlier you'll go up Ray Road with that as well. Yes. It'll match. Yeah. Whatever we do up 16 we'll we just turn the corner and Yeah. carry the same exact treatment. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. And I know we've been talking over the months about upping our architectural standards and and and I I saw no side entry uh no front entry garages are all side entry garages. Correct. Um

and you can only achieve that with you know obviously with big lots. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I saw a lot of brick and stone which which we like and u and you know I assume uh no crawl I mean no uh slabs are all crawl space type homes. Correct. Okay. Got you. Um, no. I I that's all the questions I have. Um, I know you said they're all over an acre. Do you have a minimum size that's in there and the maximum? Can you give us the range? One one acre is the minimum. Yeah. I didn't know if that was actually what's planned. Is this going to be a minimum or is it or is it a little over?

It's is one acre minimum. Is are the smallest? There's only maybe five or six of those. The rest are all substantially larger than an acre. The average in here, Brent, tell me if I'm wrong, the average would probably be 1 two one somewhere in that range. I think the biggest one's just a under 60,000. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And then of course there's a tremendous amount of commonary open space. This is the opposite of mass grading. This is leaving all the trees. Um, everything that is that that this drawing is actually overlaid on an actual aerial. So what you're seeing there is reality. That's not made up or computerenerated. It's reality. And so all of those areas that you see in the lighter green color, you know, is all intended to be you left totally undisturbed. Not only the 100 foot required buffer around the two roads, but everything you see in the back. And the reason we looped the road in the way the big horseshoe the way we did um was to preserve there's a creek crossing and some yeah right there in the middle and some and some topo. So instead the only way you can handle that like some of the other old plans that were once submitted on this a while back by others you know it it it didn't preserve that. It showed a crossing there which means you would have to done tremendous amount of grading. It would have been a huge grading project. So, we work with what God gave us. We work with the land, work with the topography, leave the trees. We'll even leave the trees for the most part on the lots and we would let uh the home builder let Arcadia and the homeowner, you know, obviously clear the driveway and the house pad, but there will be these lots are are big enough to there will be a good many trees left in between houses, behind houses, and actually on the lots. Uh now there there's also uh as Lisa can attest, there's also a lot of mostly a lot of just junk trees. I mean this was a lot of this was under agriculture a number of years ago and what's out there is just what's grown up in what used to be a field a cultivated field. So you just got a lot of pine trees and a lot of scrubs. U but the nice trees fortunately are in the areas that were not farmed which are mostly the areas that we're leaving undisturbed. That's where the really nice trees are anyhow because

they didn't farm that. It was too wet or too too much, you know, too hilly. And this is all water resour That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, good point, Tom. That Yeah, this is unusual for Weddington. Uh this is uh of course county water and sewer. The sewer actually goes back to the system that I installed years ago for Long View. And that that the the M Yeah, the arrow I don't know if you can see it. the arrows pointing to it. That's a sewer line. It actually ties into a sewer line that I put in years ago that feeds through the Long View system. Um, and goes into Six Mile Creek. So, it it won't it doesn't go into 12 Mile Creek.

And you've already got the easement for that is correct. Yeah. Have an agreement with the Hudsons. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. We put it in in I put it through their property years ago and the point where we're connecting is way in the back of their property where it doesn't affect anything. It's it's back as close as we could get to the creek. It's an undevelopable area anyhow and it's a short distance from my property over to an existing manhole. So, it's a natural just a natural flow. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Speaking of the architecture, what basically what size home starting maybe starting or what your what's your vision for the size of home and maybe price point

as well as Jeremy said these are going to be no two alike and every owner every builder every you know person has going to have their own vision of what they want. Uh from my experience I know I have some some folks some residents within Long View that are most likely going to want to downsize as crazy as that sounds after seeing some of those houses. I mean, some everything can downsize. Uh, but some folks there are going to be downsizing. They're they've been in a large home. They built in there with us, you know, 15 years ago, maybe 18, 20 years ago when their kids were little and in school, and now their kids are all, you know, out of school, married and got their own family, and they don't need the big mega houses. So, they're going to scale down. Some of those folks may go down in the, you know, in the 4,000s, 47, 45, 4,700 square feet, 400 square feet. Um, I suspect most will be larger. There may be some folks that, you know, too big is not big enough. There may be some folks that, you know, the sky's is the limit. They may want to build a really large house and we have the lot size to accommodate that. If I had to get, Jeremy, what would you guess? I mean, if I had to guess average, it would be

I would say predominantly I bet you they're between 6 and 8,000. Six and 8,000 square feet. That's probably where I would bet most of them are, but there'll be outfitters. I know they'll be I bet you there'll be some that are a little smaller and some that are a little bit bigger, but I bet you 75% between six and eight. Gotcha. And probably would there be a minimum square footage like the 45 to 4700? Yes. Yeah. We yeah we'll set a we'll have a set of a strict set of uh CCRs covenants restrictions much like I do at Long View be very high building standard requirements in our in our documents and there will be a minimum uh there will be a minimum standard in there for sure

and and of course garages are required and and yeah so we'll have a very good set of documents architectural control. Gotcha. And speaking of that, I saw like um like like in Long View, you have the the stone roofs, I guess, [snorts] uh as opposed to shingles. Is that slated here for that or is that uh up to the homeowner? It's with what the homeowner and the architect we'll have that as an architectural requirement where it has to be a hard to reverse. Certainly, there would be a a minimum standard in the case of it being an asphalt shingle. It would certainly be the highest level of asphalt that would exist, but um but I don't believe we're intending to require a hard tile.

Okay. Like like long view. Yeah. Not everywhere. Believe it or not, the main the state section is one of the sections that doesn't require the hard tile. There's other sections. Yeah. It's just most people chose to do it. Yeah. Yeah. A couple other sections we required it for a true European look. Yeah. There are some I think some of the nicest houses in there. Um you would never look at and think it's missing the hard roof, but they're as sh Okay. Okay. So, it'll be it'll be a very high standard. Gotcha. Okay. Um I think it's Clayton. Any questions?

Have one break and get everything figured out. Okay. All right. Well, you know, we our compliments to Greg and staff and the team have been great to work with. We can expect to continue to do that and and planning board of course. No. And and try to, you know, as as you guys know with the our new appendix 2B, we we've done a lot of changing on that over the like last four or five months,

make sure you don't run up on an old version, you know, and and miss some things. So, try to have that down as possible. I'm not gonna say Brent has it memorized, but [laughter] I know he's read it a time or two, for sure. Yeah. So, we we we hear you loud and clear. We're trying we're trying our best to come in with every eye dotted and every tea crossed and be totally organized. We don't want to waste your time. We y'all's time is valuable. Our time, the planning board, we want to be respectful and we try to come in the first time and try to get it right. Okay. There's no such thing as a perfect project, but we're intended for this to be as close as possible to what Weddington likes and what Weddington expects.

No. And you know, and it being on the corner there, you know, we we the town was looking for something that's going to be um going to be nice upscale because that's a very visible corner. It is. And like someone said earlier that uh everybody in his brother has wanted that corner at some point. Yeah.

For various projects. Well, well, you guys you guys know from our our example in years past that we're good at doing that. Long View was an open field when you drive down Tom Short Road. And from the first day I opened Long View, you couldn't see the first house. You can't see the golf course. You can't see anything. We landscaped it so heavily. And now the oak trees are about to grow together like in like in Myers Park or East over in Charlotte. And same thing across the street from here on Ray Road, across from this on Ray Road. Um we uh did the the high clear gated community and it was a wide open field and had the opposite topography of this project. It was down kind of in a hole and Ray Road set up high where you would look down on all the houses and rooftops which not would have been a good thing. And I promised not this council but the Wington mayor and town council at that time that you know trust me we would hide all of that. and we far exceeded the town ordinance in that landscape. And good grief, I mean, I brought in 40, 50,000 cubic yards of dirt to create the burm to give us some height and elevation. And we put in 1,400 trees and bushes, which exceeded the town's requirements 10fold or 20fold.

So here, this is the opposite. Here, we're blessed. The end of the site sits higher. So, you're not really going to have the vantage point to see from the road other than what we do in the way of fencing and landscaping. That's really all you're going to see because you got that super dense, thick 100 foot buffer. It's some places there are so thick deer have a hard time crawling through it. Uh so, that's going to be the best screen in the world um for for the town, but it's also important for our future residents because we want them to have, you know, a private backyard and a safe feeling backyard if they have kids out there. So having those that that dense woods and it also is a nice sound block a sound buffer for them. So you know our intent is to leave that but we got to go on the front edge where it's all woolly and just unkempt for the last 50 years and beautify it. So what you look at from the road looks beautiful and behind that it's just thick and dense and we just leave it just the way it is untouched.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. And with those existing trees there, you think you can accomplish what you're doing? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We Yeah, we'll just leave those. They're beautiful the way they are. We'll enhance them. You know, we'll do some nice collars and rings around them and nice mulching and put irrigation in them and do nightlights, soft, you know, night lighting at night. I mean, it'll we'll make it shine. Okay. Okay. We'll make it we'll make it something that everybody can be proud of. Cool. Good, guys. You good? Look forward to see what gets. All right.

All right. Thank you guys so much for coming doing the presentation. Been traveling so you guys I'm not being rude to Keystone friends, but we're going to leave it with you. Yeah, I've been at it for 16 17 hours. So, I hear and still got to go eat supper. Yeah, I hear you. Thank you guys. Thank you'all for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. The uh consent agenda. Um can I get a motion? We've modified this consent agenda. Can I get a a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented?

Okay. And you've you've made a motion. Can I get a All in favor?

It's unanimous. Say consent agenda has been approved. Uh old business. Okay. Uh this is uh the discussion and possible consideration of ordinance uh CZ 20226-01 application by Keystone Custom Homes for conditional zoning approval for development of 11 lot subdivision at 3009 Forest Lawn Drive parcel number 07150015 and the statement of consistency of land use plan. Uh guys want to come up. Uh I'm going to ask uh you say anything.

Yes. Come up. But I'm going to I'm come up. I'm going let Greg take off with it. But go I'm going let you Greg go ahead and introduce it. But stand um stand by for a second.

Yes sir. Uh thank you mayor. Uh members of Weddingington Town Council. Um so it is March 9th. This is the third time this item. Uh that would be CZ 2026-1. Um application by Keystone Custom Builders requesting conditional zoning approval of an 11 conservation division for Lawn Drive. Um this was previous a revision last month reduced that lot count from 12 to 11. Um and as far as density is concerned, uh that's approximately 11 lots on 16 and a half acres. So roughly one home per every 1.5 uh acres of land, which would match kind of our low density agricultural requirements. There's several references the land use code on that and it does vary but our harshest standard would be one home for every 1.5 acres and with an 11 lot subdivision we meet that requirement. Um the other changes I would just note because everybody's very familiar with this project is that uh the objective of this most recent revision is to preserve as many trees as possible. So, if I may go through some of these um exhibits again, uh this is kind of your yield plan consideration. You have 20% open space and 50% can accommodate kind of challenging properties. Uh this is a conservation type subdivision. So, 50% of the land has to be permanently conserved as conservation land. uh but you do not get credit for some of these more challenging uh

topography or floodway types. And so this was the iteration that you saw last month. Um the addition was the neighborhood green located here towards the entrance. Um that was on the north side of the property. Uh the most recent revision now moves that neighborhood green to the south side of the property. is still 10,000 square ft. But the objective here isn't so much to create a new space, but to preserve some existing heritage trees, which the council expressed concern about uh removing. And so this exhibit shows um three of the largest trees on the property. One, two, three here now are either in conservation open space, basically common open space, or this one's in somebody's backyard, but is located outside the building footprint. Um so it's outside the area that tree should be removed. um you know this is a larger lot whereas this is a smaller lot that's one of the major changes um but to explain that is that the lots need to average 20,000 square feet per our UDO so they could be as small as 18 but if you count all the lots together they should account for 20 or roughly a half acre each um so this is one of the major changes is this shifting of open space from the north to the south in order to accommodate more trees. That was the primary discussion point of our last meeting. Um I think adding the neighborhood green uh we had discussion about that. I don't think we need to get into that further. It was recommended uh but not necessarily required in our code. Um we're saying that we want that.

That was that was always kind of our position is that we would like to accommodate that in the best way possible. Uh so that has now been added and then um [clears throat] you can see the 50% or greater open space is located on this yield plan. Again um yield plans are supposed to accommodate floodway and steep slopes. They tried to show those both in this new exhibit as well. I I leave that to the applicant to describe some of the changes that they've made. Uh but I believe our intent was to lower the density and save trees and uh in redesigning this subdivision. Um we're we're accomplishing some of those objectives that we stated in our last public public meeting. Um with [snorts] that, you know, staff's recommendation has always been approval. I have amended our staff report to note that consistency, but I did note that the density has been lowered and the neighborhood green has been added.

Okay. [clears throat] Thank you, Keith. Um Keith, [laughter] Greg, Keith, go ahead. Thank you, mayor and council members. Appreciate the time. Uh yeah, as Greg mentioned, this is our third time coming and trying to swing this thing and and hopefully we can get a home run. We've addressed every comment uh possible that uh the last round produced the neighborhood green and a request was made to change the location of that uh and to have more intentionality on saving the three heritage trees. So, we combined that effort and we are saving three out of the four. So, that was a big win for those heritage trees.

Um I did want to point out there was a public reference to the drainage. uh and I just want to rest assured that we have addressed that uh our engineers have taken that into consideration. We know that there's that problem that's an existing condition. Everything that we're building, we are creating our own drainage system that's going to contain all of that impervious into our pond. So, if anything, we're going to alleviate the problem. We're not fixing the problem. We're alleviating the problem. I just want to be very clear about that. and the additional uh landscaping trees that we're adding is going to add to more pvious area. So, it's going to help absorb a lot more of the rain that's on the front end of the property. So, there should be a difference when it's all said and done to the positive. Um, and I will offer uh you know, for the neighbors that are concerned, you know, off record or independently, I'll meet with them and we can discuss that in more detail. Um the two biggest things as I referenced was the neighborhood green and the heritage trees. Uh and then the other one was um sharing. Uh I believe it was Darcy who asked for that. Uh asked for the rendering of the buffer. What would it look like as you drive down that road? So we provided that to all the council members. So those were the two main issues. Uh we've addressed that. I've got really nothing further to say unless you've got some questions.

Okay. Anyone you guys want to go first? Just to follow up on the storm water where you disturbed basically from the 100 foot buffer back. Yeah. All that water was going to your pond. Correct. So it will not be going forward. Correct. So and and I assume where that drainage is is in the rightway. Correct. Yes, we can. It's in the state rightway. Correct. That's dot goes under. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Yep.

Clean. Um, I think I may have a couple of questions. The first one you answered because I'm I'm glad you addressed the concern about the water runoff because that was one I was going to ask you about. My understanding of the state requirement is basically no net gain. Correct. That is an accurate statement that will be no more runoff than is currently running off. Correct. Okay. Yep. Um, but it's certainly a reasonable question for citizens to ask,

of course. uh parking spaces and roads and building houses and such. Um good. Um the other question uh is just [clears throat] kind of a on those big heritage trees and I I really appreciate you saving those. Uh now I hope you put some steel stake post and some orange netting around that to keep the bulldozers away from them. Oh, so that they don't, you know, out as far as perhaps the canopy. Correct. So that they don't disturb those roots because it might as well push them over if they're going to get start growing close to it.

That is the objective is to protect those all the way to the ends of the root systems, which is typically the canopy. And one more related subject, Mr. Helms, I think last month said he worried every time he got a storm that a tree was going to hit his house. So they're I guess kind of close to the house. I hope when the house is demoed that you're also careful about not [clears throat] damaging the tree. Uh believe the only tree that's near it is the one that we're taking down. Okay. If I'm not Yeah. Yeah. That's the one he was concerned about. Right. That's the one he was concerned about. All right. Well, that's my question. Okay. And in the green right now, it's basically open underneath those trees, which keep probably guess grass or whatever.

Yeah. That's going to for the most part stay untouched. Yeah. It'll just be restricted. Put out being as open. Y'all put out any benches or anything? Do y'all intend to do anything like that for the neighborhood? Yeah, we definitely will probably put some benches in there. A nice place to sit out. Yep. Agreed. What the community? [clears throat]

Okay. Well, I you know I I hate we This is the third month of you know going through this and working on this. I know this has been sort of a a crazy mess working through this and I appreciate appreciate you guys coming back. Um there was, you know, still there was a lot of uncertainties. I I still think about the the the lot yield and different things like that. Uh I do have a couple questions about the trees still and I appreciate you guys moving the green today. I think that was a tremendous win to to to do that to save those three trees. So, thank you for doing that. Sure. Uh, I know we lost a lot doing that, by the way. Pardon ma'am. We lost a lot to do that. Well, you went from 12 to 11.

You already had the lot lost on the other side. We're still at 11 because of the neighborhood green. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, but, uh, in one of the other meetings, I know in talking about the trees, uh, I think that's the the front yard of home number two, uh, you you had mentioned putting the the barrier around that. Uh and that was a conversation at at one point uh when when we were at 12 lots,

the pads had not changed and we were talking about putting that steel or that that barrier. I think Allan, you remember talking about that? It's actually in the in the front. It's not in between. It's actually in the front. It's the front yard of lot number two. Um uh that is still um I think the challenge with the front mayor is that that's also the utility easements that that's going to be very challenging to do anything in the front.

Okay. I thought we had talked about that's that you guys were going to do that uh because we talked about uh the metal fencing and that on one of those lots. That was the tree, right? Yep, absolutely, Mayor. We had talked about that on the 12 lot plan when we had that as trees between two houses. Absolutely. But I think the tree you're talking about right now is actually going to wind up being impacted by the utility. Gotcha. Yeah, it's uh it's that brown.

Yes. one that one we can't fence out the utility and I think okay it's going to get compromised it is okay let me let me ask you this about a couple of others okay because I we were trying to save a few more you know again those three big ones at the front were were was big um there was uh I'm looking here at my notes the uh between lots u eight and nine

these these here why can't we save those because it's between these here uh is there a reason you can't do that as well um correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that has to do with the grading your your slopes are starting to go down at that point towards the steeper side which is a little further away but that's where everything starts and we have to have that relationship in the swailes so that We don't have any retainage of water between the homes of the property. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Uh and that and that's the same same situation as like here in the in the front here of this house. Yes.

Not not not the purple one, but the orange one right here. That's too close to the house. Yeah. Close to the house. It's just for the foundation purposes that we would compromise the root system. Definitely. Gotcha. Okay. Um, those were my big concerns and you know in the previous meeting, you know, I was hoping you guys could, you know, squeeze out, you know, one or two more or something. Yeah, we we did reassess that. Yeah, we did look at every single trust, we did look at every single one of these. Um, and everyone, if you notice, we've got that legend with the color codes. It shows the reason why we have to remove the tree,

right? I still feel like, you know, it's almost like a clearcutting development. Again, what we're trying to get away from from [snorts] our, you know, our ordinance, our tree ordinance, trying to alleiate this, you know, cutting do mass cutings. Well, the rears of all the lots are remaining as is. So, if you notice the green trees, those are staying. And keep in mind, we're only showing the heritage trees. We're not showing all the trees in between. Uh, so it's going to, for the most part, be fully forested there.

Gotcha. Y Okay. Um did you guys come up with uh any any additions to the architectural standards or designs or or wishes that we would have we had talked about? Uh now I I saw that there is there anything other than that? Uh I I see it still, you know, you guys are still, you know, pretty much you predominantly siding except for, you know, some brick or stone on the front, but all around the home it's predominantly siding.

Right. This document was edited after our last meeting after Karen made her comments and and I promise better clarification as to what's going to take place. Okay, this is what we're proposing. Now, I can't promise you there won't be two homes out there with sighting, but I can promise you they won't look alike. Okay. Um so, so I think that that's what we're capturing here is uh the intent of the variation of what's going to take place. Gotcha. Yeah. We were just trying to get away from, you know, assigning just, you know, clear assigning neighborhoods, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. actually and uh I think last month we uh talked about there's the there's material and then there's architecture. Okay, architecture is what we're more concerned about because that's going to make the material even if it's the same look different because of the bumpouts and the other um aspects of it like that. That's what I'm focused on is the architecture of it. Gotcha. Um, okay. And and we're still, you know, I think it said in there side entry garages except for that third. If you added a third, it could be, you know, we mentioned that, we talked about that agreement on that. And cross crawl spaces, no slabs,

right? That and basement. Correct. Correct. Correct. Exactly. Um, okay. Um, council, any other questions or ideas or thoughts? No, you are. I do I do have one question. This is not directed towards them,

but really how we look at things, you know, several weeks ago and several months ago and last month we went through and it was substantial looking at substantial changes and I think just as a general policy going forward when we get one of these that's going to have significant change it go back to the planning board to get done and then come to us when finalized. and not us having to come and do back and forth like ping pong, right? And come to us, let the planning board do their job and and get it right, then send it to us in the proper format. That's my whole point. Yeah,

this one got caught in a in a different situation between old ordinance, new ordinance, and I don't think it should have come to us the way it did, but we should have also sent it back to them when it looked like it was going to change substantially,

right? No. No. And I I I totally agree and that's why we're here for the third month. And, you know, I appreciate you guys again coming back up here. Um, so no other comments or questions. Okay. Well, can I get a a motion to approve or deny uh ordinance CZ 20 2601 uh application by Keystone Custom Homes for conditional zoning approval for development of 11 lot subdivision at uh or on 3009 Forest Lawn Drive. Uh this is this will be a motion to either approve or deny the project. Well, actually a motion should be to approve because we always do affirmative. Correct.

Yeah. make a motion. I'll make a motion to approve as presented here with the conditions and the architectural standards as presented. Okay. Um uh all in favor. Okay. So it's uh uh unanimous that it would be approved. Uh so the motion uh motion to adopt a statement of reasonleness and consistency as follows. CZ 202601 is uh reasonable and consistent with the uh recommendations of town staff, the planning board, and the council's comprehensive land use plan. And the uh the motion passes.

We got a vote. The statement and uh can I get a motion to adopt this statement? Make a motion to adopt the statement. Okay. All in favor? Okay. and uh we move on and we move on from there. So, thank you very much, council. Thank you guys. We've done good work. We've created a great neighborhood. We will not disappoint you. I want to make sure that the storm water or any kind of runoff from the other developments. Yes. So, that's that's got to be [laughter] that you not negatively affect any residents or neighbors around you. That's very fair. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Okay. Um, okay. We're going to go to um 12 12B 12A rather. I'm sorry, 12A. Thank you. Uh, this is discussion to consider and consideration of planning board appointments. Um, and I'm going to ask uh do I have a motion? We're going to look at uh uh um

NY's the N well NY's uh I I want to say first I appreciate Nancy Anderson uh serving on the board, her her commitment to the town and all she's done throughout the years and uh serving as mayor and and the planning board. And so I want to thank her even though she's not here for her uh commitment and service to the town. So, I'd like to uh have a motion first for that position that she had to resign back I think in October, November and uh for some various reasons and so we're filling her position to um fulfill that that time which I think is around if I'm not mistaken around three years left on that. This is a four-year term. So, I think she served one year somewhere in that ballpark. And uh so this will be to fill that three-year term remaining. So, can I get a motion to fill NY's? Your

honor, it's my pleasure and honor to make a motion that we appoint uh Taylor Green to replace uh the vacant uh planning board member vacated by Nancy Anderson. Okay. Taylor Grove. Taylor Grove. Taylor Grove. Okay. Uh, I have a motion for Taylor growth. Uh, uh, house the all in favor. All the questions. Pardon me. All in favor? All in favor? All in favor? So, um, Taylor Grove, welcome. So, uh, we'll have Taylor Grove replacing NY's field position. So, thank you, Taylor, for your

this Katie is back in town. Y Yeah. So, okay. Uh to uh we have another position coming up which is expiring uh position here. And uh for that position, can I get a motion uh for that one? Um I'm going to make a motion that we reappoint Rusty Setser to the position he currently holds for a four-year term. Okay. So, his his position was expiring in March.

Yes. And uh and so we have a motion to reappoint Rusty for that position. Okay. All in favor? Okay. All right. It's unanimous. So Rusty will be reappointed to that position. And uh thank you Rusty for your service to the board and to the town and all you do for for the residents. So thank you. Um code enforcement report. Do we have anything there? Um, it is in your packet, sir. All right. I think we had some public comment on that on that topic. Uh, we're working diligent with that with our town attorney. Okay. All right. Great.

Greg, that was my question was of course that's in my district and Mr. Griswell and I have talked numerous occasions and he informed me that the code enforcement had been out there and I believe you have been out there as well and it sounds like they are. There's a number of compliance issues that need to be dealt with. Yeah. I I can't say too much on the record without I'm not I'm not asking to say anything. I'm just saying it sounds like my understanding is you are are you're dealing with it. That is accurate. It is a complex case. Okay. Complex case. Yeah. Any other No, sir.

Comments? Okay. Uh update from the finance officer and uh tax collector. Leslie, come on up. You have the monthly financials in your packet and you also have the most updated preliminary um operating budget for fiscal year 27. I tried to take um any comments that we made at our retreat and incorporate them in here. Um changes are highlighted in yellow. They're very minimal. So if you have any questions, I'm ready to answer. Okay.

I guess my real question is to make sure we do have a good handle on the um sales tax revenue. A final answer, but we are working on it. We're close to Yeah, when we get Zach um appraisal for next year and all that, we will try try to get final revenue numbers, but they are still preliminary. But we're not gonna be surprised. No, we'll be close. We should be We should be much We should be much closer this time. [laughter] Okay, that was a Yeah, surprise. It was. Okay. Uh Clayton, any questions? Uh no questions. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you so much.

Um update uh town planner.

Uh just be me. Uh since Karen Dwey is uh out of uh the office today, um in regards to upcoming projects and proposals, uh we have had uh several community meetings and we have a community meeting next week uh regarding pending residential subdivisions in the community. So, uh, we have, uh, all worked pretty hard to properly vet and appropriately, uh, communicate with our applicants, you know, the high standards that the town of Weddington has. Despite that, we still have several applicants who have been kind of active this spring. I had noted in previous uh, staff reports and records that we had tried to whittle that down. Um, that were pretty active in in terms of applications at this time. I'd be happy to provide all of you a more detailed report uh once those community meetings have taken place. Uh in order of uh processing those basically we vet them with the public first. We have a community meeting that is not a town meeting or not something that staff attends. We try to receive feedback. We try to actually amend those site plans based on the feedback we receive. And then that's when we look at it for completeness and we look at it for these details that uh are always brought up by the planning board and other bodies. So I I could say with more confidence next month uh the town planner can give you a timeline of of projects that are moving forward particularly because of of the actions of the council today with the Keystone project. Now we have kind of removed that blockage and we can keep processing additional applications. Uh so if you have questions about timelines, who's in order, what projects are coming up, uh happy to be very open, transparent with uh all the information we've received thus far that includes um topics like public property that the town owns.

Gotcha. Okay. you know, and I'll say this too, you know, continue as you do to, you know, vet that these um I'm going to say candidates or developers, whatever, to make sure, you know, they're bringing the the quality and the standard and, you know, what we're looking for into the town, you know, and uh and and relay to them our expectations and uh we're not getting we're not getting we're not letting up. We're getting harder to to to come through. I I commend uh Councilman Jones uh for his comments regarding downzoning. Uh that is accurate. It's not that we can eliminate certain zones or tell exactly what we want to do, but we do have

uh the powers granted us by the legislature of North Carolina to have conditional zoning. So, we can't say you can't choose that option, but we can say which one we prefer. Yeah. No. And a lot of folks don't understand that and they'll speak wrongly about that. And uh and I think you know when we we we upped the size of conditional zoning prior to that that law going in, I think it was a great move for the town for our uh I say I say conditional zoning conservation meant conservation. So uh because um we're we're we're pretty stuck where we're at. Yeah.

Uh I know uh Representatives Dean Arp and uh and David Willis have a bill to presenting for a local act for Union County uh to relieve that downzoning. Uh they're not optimistic. It will be a local act for Union County. And so it's it'll be very tough to get it through. And so there's only one granted so far in the whole state. Really? Yep. and [snorts] and so on once it's pretty much in there, it's it's stuck and it's hard to get rid of it. So, uh thank you. Thank you, Greg.

Greg, am I right that a large portion of the undeveloped property is conservative as conservation already? Yeah. The way primarily that's what we have. Yeah. If you see if you see the official zoning map of Weddington, you can see existing subdivisions, you know, indicated as R40 or RCD. Um, but if there is a lot and you don't see the lot subdivided in the way you would, you know, visually identify it, it looks like raw open land, it's it's going to be zoned RCD. Yeah. So that that gives the the choice to the to do with conservation or or conventional. Correct.

Yeah. Right. and and our and our goal has always been by tightening up on our UDO uh and as you know, Greg, to to sort of force that move into, you know, the R40 uh and and since we do have conservation and so that was that was our goal and our move to start with is to I'll just say it make it tougher to go that route and to force that move. And so, uh, a lot of the developments that we've seen here lately have been that and it's I think I think that is working in what we've done in tightening up on the UDO and we're going to continue to tighten up as you know and I appreciate you working with the subcommittee on that.

I would say that any conservation development that comes forward is going to look more in tune with the city, the town because of the increase in minimum lot size, right? And it's going to be very difficult for them to do being there's the lack of sewer capacity around. You just cannot do one of these without public sewer. Exactly. So, it's going to be very limited of what will happen in the future unless the county comes through with a huge bond issue and starts playing pipe all over Wedington, which isn't going to happen. Yeah. So, it's going to be very very spotty or very limited on what could happen in the way of conservation developments going forward.

Yeah. No, exactly. And that and that's our goal is to have larger lots and that's that's Wington anyway. And we've been working on that for two years to to push in that direction. So, it's nothing that's new. It's something we've been working toward to tighten it up to force to force that hand to force that move in that direction. It's just that some developers come in and try to do you know what they they try to do. So, uh, Clayton, uh, we're going to move into the, uh, public, uh, council comments. Um, then I'm going to come back to transportation record.

Okay. Um, I have proposed to council members that we consider a segment in our website or perhaps in our monthly newsletter, uh, what I have tenatively named the Councilman Corner. And that is a a space where each month a different councilman can perhaps address an issue of interest to the citizens or uh a project. For example, uh uh Councilwoman Mccclaclin and her uh her neighborhood safety initiative or or gardening or whatever. And I know as a lawyer, I would like to address some legal u issues um and educate the public a little more about what this council's legally can and cannot do. Uh not an opinion piece. uh strictly as uh Sergeant uh uh in Dragnet uh Friday would say just the facts uh and not anything that's and and I hope I can get some support on that and uh you know I looked at the 2018 survey and a number of the major complaints in there are frankly things that this council has no control over but the citizens don't understand that. Uh, and I'd like to try to educate them as as much as I can or each councilman if they've got a bet project or something or something that they want to get some news out about, you know, we can kind of do it on a rotating basis and perhaps have Karen take a look at it to make sure that uh we're on solid legal ground and not uh getting in any uh sticky issues. But, uh, that's something I'd

like to see move forward and but, uh, other than that, I'd like to thank thank the staff for all you do. Um, I'm glad, uh, Jasine has filled in here today tonight. Uh, those are some pretty big shoes to fill and thank you for doing that. Thank you, Greg, for all you do. And, uh, our certainly our budget and tax lady over here. Thanks for all you do to keep us in the in the black and not in the red. So, that's all my comments. Yep.

Well, thank everybody for coming out and I hope it wasn't too uh boring for y'all tonight. It was We got through pretty well tonight and I appreciate that. I hope everybody has a great week and thank the staff for all the hard work and I look forward to seeing y'all next month.

Yeah. [clears throat] No, and I'm and as I close, I'm going to include the transportation with my comments, too. uh the uh doesn't really affect the town, but it affects the the area. Uh being on the the CRPTO, uh regional transportation, the I77 South is uh you know, that's starting to starting to ex I'm going to say explode. Uh people are starting to get engaged. Uh the last several meetings we've had was been standing room only and uh a lot of lot of push back on that. And uh a project that's 2 um uh $3.2 2 billion dollars. It started out at 4.2 billion and now it's down to, you know, I think it's because the word pushed back so much. They had come up with some other ideas. Now it's to 3.2 billion. So, I don't know what's going to happen with that. There's a lot of push back and threat lawsuits and court intervention and that kind of thing. So, we'll see where that's where that's happening or what's going to happen with that. And so, uh, but other than that, there's nothing really major that we haven't talked about in town. uh the railroad widening 16, all of that. We've talked about that numerous times and it stands where it's at. I did talk with DOT this past week. I would like for them to come in and give us a a communitywide update on u what's going on with railroad and and widening of 16. And they they they informed me informed me that it will be um late spring or early summer before they will even be ready. Now, originally they told me, you know, last fall going into the fall. Then they said around Christmas and now it's uh late spring, early summer. And so what we're going to try to do, I've talked with uh uh mayors at different municipalities. We may meet in Waxaw and do it all as a big community type deal since it affects so many people. And so uh we've been invited down there. So

we'll we'll work out the logistics of that when that happens. Um, I do want to u bounce off and and say too I I agree, Clayton. Uh, I'd like for us to take advantage of your your legal knowledge and your ex expertise in that because I think there's a lot of misinformation that that's out and a lot of, you know, residents get fed misinformation, you know, about what we can do and can't do and our responsibilities and, you know, where the town is. And sometimes we we get blamed for stuff that we have no, you know, no means to to control over and and so and it's just out of our wheelhouse. So, no, I I think it'd be great if you know on the legal side, you know, come out, you work with Karen, vet it with her on that kind of thing and uh and sort of educate the residents so there's not a lot of misinformation still being out there uh posted out there. Well, it's not something they teach us in school.

Yes. It's not in the civics classes,

right? So, so you know, so thank you for for willing to take the time to do that. Um um and I want to say too also uh we are taking applications for the uh park and events advisory board and and that's going real well and so I' I'd still would like to even get more and so we've got a lot of excited people wanting to do that and just really want to get involved in that. So, if there's others who would like to get involved and be a part of that, uh, reach out to the staff, reach out to Karen, uh, uh, Dwey and, uh, fill out, uh, application and because, uh, there's a lot of people just, you know, really wanting to jump in to to get involved in that and got a lot of great ideas. So, so, thank you for everybody who's applied already. So, we're still taking those and we'll be selecting those in the next week or two to come. So, uh, so please let us know and don't delay. Um, other than that, I think I am I am good with my comments. We're going to take some time. We're going to go into a close session. We'll break for about five minutes or so and to go into a close session. So, can I get a motion?

Make a motion we move to close session. And I'm not going to read all the numbers there, but that's the reasons we're moving into close session. Yes. And that is uh NC uh NCGS 143-318.11 uh A3 and six. And so uh with that motion uh all in favor? Okay, it's unanimous. We're going to go into a close session. Okay, I