 
Site plan as of December 15, 2015 community meeting
Site plan elevations as of December 15,2015 community meeting
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| Lineberger Proposal October 2015 |
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| Lineberger Proposal October 2015 |
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| Lineberger Proposal amended June 26 2015 |
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| Original Lineberger Proposal May 26 2015 |
For at least the fifth time in forty years, the Lineberger family is seeking to re-zone a very environmentally sensitive wooded patch between Duharts Creek and Franklin Boulevard - land across from the entrance to Lowe’s, Sam’s Club, and K-Mart. That parcel keeps City neighborhoods from the noise, lights and stormwater runoff flooding from commerce north of Franklin; and a rezoning for a commercial big box location would bring all that mess against us with only minimum buffers. This is directly counter to a negotiated zoning in 2006 for a transitional use as senior apartments in the location and against decades of planning department counsel against heavy development. Please join with your neighbors in Gardner Park, Gardner Woods, New Hope Acres and Sedgefield - and concerned citizens across the City - to preserve this land from commercial intrusion and more traffic congestion.
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| Proposed Academy Sports storefront |
On May 26 2015, Mountcastle Corporation of Johnson City, TN, representatives for the Lineberger family, owners of the tract (tax ID 119705, seen in top banner from the TerraFly website), filed a request to have that parcel rezoned from O-M-CD (conditional use zoning) to C-3-CD (unrestricted commercial use). They submitted plans (pictured above) for a ten-acre-plus commercial development, half of which would be a big box retail location which would require up to twelve feet of infill soil on what is the largest remaining natural floodplain for the upper portion of Duharts Creek, an area heavily stressed by the creation of Franklin Square, Gaston Mall and its redesign, and other shops in adjoining areas north of Franklin Boulevard. Development in such a way of this parcel would eliminate noise, light and floodplain buffers between the most-intensely-visited commercial development in the city and the Gardner Park and Gardner Woods neighborhoods that are fifty- and forty-year-old established and healthy middle-class residential areas.
Planning Department staff review of the proposal occurred on June 3. One of their primary comments was that more detail was needed on the proposed development in order for staff to comment further on the proposal. [7/21/15: Received the June 26 updated proposal from Planning staff today and have posted above.] [8.19.15: A traffic study for the development was later submitted to Planning staff, and is available on request from them or us. ] [10.19.15: Received additional graphic details of project details and alternatives, two posted above.] [12.8.15: Received additional graphics, posted above,]
The Planning Commission was originally set to hear this case in August 2015, but the petitioner has asked for a one-month delay several times. After the petitioner held a required community meeting on December 15, 2015 (at which time we learned that the only confirmed tenant of the development is the big box store on the right, Academy Sports + Outdoors), the Commission was asked by the petitioner to review this zoning change request on February 4, 2016. At that meeting, however, the Commission voted to allow a one-month delay to March 3, 2016 for the presentation of the petitioner's rezoning request. The delay will allow staff to issue a report with their evaluation of the petitioner's tardily-submitted site plan, and will allow representatives from the City, NCDOT and petitioners to meet to discuss a separate side agreement covering this parcel that dates from the early days of Franklin Square's development. That agreement requires that an additional lane of traffic be added to Franklin on the south side if this parcel is developed. City Council would then vote on any appeal confirming or rejecting the Planning Commission's recommendations at their meeting on April 19, 2016. UPDATE March 4, 2016: THANK YOU to the Gastonia Planning Commission for voting 5-2 against rezoning last night. Final votes against: Jim Stewart [Ward 3], Pamela D. Goode, Chairman [Ward 4], Rodney Armstrong [Ward 5], Bob Biggerstaff [Ward 6], and Mark Epstein [At Large No. 2]. Final votes for: Bob Cinq-Mars [Ward 2], Alec Long [At Large No. 1]. Absent: Jerry Fleeman [Ward 1].
The aim of this blog is to give information for those wishing to oppose this large commercial intrusion, which ignores the needed buffer and floodplain functions of the property currently, the negotiated uses of the property agreed to with area stakeholders, and the stated planning of community leaders as they looked at best practices for land use in the area. To oppose this development is not to oppose all development as our region grows and changes, but to insist on appropriate development. Commerce and neighborhoods need each other, and need public officials to work with and for both groups, not pit one against the other.
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