100s of multufamily units coming to Potts Street per application

The hurricane of development pounding Davidson just went from a Category 3 to a Category 4, and it unfortunately shows no signs of stopping.

An application dated Monday 5/19 showed up on the town website this week - exactly when is unclear - for something simply name the "Potts Development".   The application proposes 19 townhomes and 276 multi-family units.  Whether those would be condos or apartments is also unclear, but recent development patterns would say apartments are likely.

The developer is Crescent Communities, the development spinoff of Duke Energy.  The rest of the development team includes all too familiar names on big developed projects in Davidson.  Local attorney Susan Irvin filed the application, and once again the firm of Davidson Commissioner Brian Jenest did the land planning.

Per the application, this appears to be a "by right" development which likely means Davidson Commissioners won't vote on it.

Also per the application, the traffic impact analysis is underway, but one can be sure the TIA will say impact from this project is being "mitigaged" by both the Potts Sloan Beaty corridor an the reconfiguring of the Potts/115 intersection currently being planned.  Both of those projects are being made possible with I77 HOT lanes "bonus allocation" dollars.  Incidentally, Commissioner Jenest has been a staunch supporter of that controversial effort to expand I77 with the toll lanes that also generated those bonus dollars.

aShortChronicle noticed something interesting about this plan when looking at the pictures that came with the application.  They made us ask the question "why does this development not use the entire property?"  Readers will notice the bottom several acres next to the BMP pond are not being developed.

Why would that be?  Developers tend to use every square inch of land to squeeze out more profits.

A close examination of the main parcel in question appears to give the answer.  When bringing that parcel up in Polaris, it is 00320511A and 00320511B. Part A is in Davidson and Part B is in Cornelius.  Part A is zoned by Davidson as Village Infill which allows this kind of high intensity development.  Part B is zoned by Cornelius as Neighborhood Residential which only allows 2-4 residences per acre per the Cornelius planning ordinance.

From Cornelius Zoning Map

It would seem, the correct way to look at this is that Cornelius's zoning has saved Davidson from this project being 50% bigger and creating a true traffic disaster at this entrance to town - at least for now.   Davidson is allowing this while Cornelius would not. Remember that the next time you hear Davidson Town Hall crowing about the awards won by the town Planning Department.