A developer's plan to build 110 townhomes on nine acres near a future CATS Red Line station in Huntersville is headed for a town board vote after planning staff recommended denying the request outright. The Sam Furr Townes project, proposed by Veer Development LLC, would sit north of Sam Furr Road and west of Old Statesville Road, but town planners say the density blows past what current zoning allows.
According to a report from Lake Norman Publications, Huntersville planning staff recommended denying Veer Development's rezoning petition, known as R26-08, because the site's current Neighborhood Residential zoning caps attached housing at 30% of units. The developer is asking for a waiver that would let the entire 110-unit project consist of attached townhomes, and staff concluded the proposal did not offer enough public benefit to justify overriding that limit. As reported by the Charlotte Observer, the rezoning request will first go before the Huntersville planning board for a recommendation before landing with the town board for a final decision.
The proposed community would cover six parcels totaling roughly nine acres at the southwest corner of Old Statesville Road and Caldwell Track Drive, according to the same Lake Norman Publications report, working out to a density of about 11.14 units per acre. The project would include 279 parking spaces and homes averaging around 2,000 square feet, per the Charlotte Observer's account. Huntersville's Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on August 4 to defer the hearing, and the town has since rescheduled it for 6 p.m. on Tuesday at town hall, located at 14704 N. Old Statesville Road. The Observer notes that such deferrals are common when a developer asks for more time to present a project, and that dates for the subsequent planning board and town board hearings have not yet been announced.
Developer's Affordable Housing Offer Falls Short, Planners Say
To bolster its case, Veer Development offered to restrict four units as affordable housing for 15 years at 100% of the Area Median Income and to pay 150% of the required tree-save mitigation fee, according to Lake Norman Publications. Town planners still ruled those commitments insufficient to justify the density waiver the developer is seeking. The debate reflects a broader pattern across the Lake Norman area, where affordable housing set-asides and environmental mitigation payments are frequently offered — and frequently contested — as bargaining chips in rezoning fights, as Hoodline reported when covering a bitter 3-2 vote over a nearby Cornelius hotel proposal.
The strict 30% cap on attached housing isn't a new hurdle. The Huntersville Town Board passed a text amendment in March 2022, known as TA22-02, that eliminated a prior rule allowing developments near designated transit stations to bypass that limit, per town records. That change means projects like Sam Furr Townes no longer get an automatic pass for higher density just because they sit near a planned rail stop, even as the town continues to court transit-oriented growth elsewhere.
A Corridor Reshaped by the Red Line and Road Widening
The site's appeal to developers is tied directly to regional transit momentum. The City of Charlotte finalized a $91 million deal in September 2024 to acquire 22 miles of Norfolk Southern's O-Line freight track along with 1.6 acres at Gateway Station, securing the corridor needed for the proposed CATS Red Line, a deal Hoodline covered when the $91 million investment first went before city council. In March, Charlotte City Council authorized another $37.9 million for the next phase of Red Line design work, with transit officials estimating the commuter rail line will open for service in eight to ten years.
Sam Furr Townes would also sit adjacent to the planned alignment of The Seam Trail, a regional multi-use greenway network designed to eventually stretch more than 60 miles and connect eight downtowns across Mecklenburg and Iredell counties. The corridor has already drawn other large projects: in May, the Huntersville Town Board approved a 4-3 rezoning vote for Knox Crossing, a 44-acre mixed-use development at Sam Furr and Old Statesville roads that will bring 413 residential units, a grocery store, and 30 affordable housing units to a site just south of the approved Station South development near the same proposed rail stop.
Roads Already Strained Near the Site
Traffic capacity remains a persistent concern along the corridor. NCDOT is advancing design work to widen a 14-mile stretch of NC 73, also known as Sam Furr Road, from two lanes to four between Old Statesville Road and Concord Parkway North — a project Hoodline detailed in its report on the NC 115 corridor makeover. The state is also planning a redesign of the I-77 interchange at Sam Furr Road, known as Exit 25, into a split-diamond configuration with new bridge crossings intended to ease the heavy commuter delays that already plague the intersection near Birkdale Village.
Those road and rail investments help explain why developers keep eyeing this stretch of Huntersville for higher-density housing, even as the town board holds the line on its 30% attached-housing rule in Neighborhood Residential zones. Whether Sam Furr Townes ultimately squeezes through that limit will be decided at Tuesday's rescheduled hearing, followed by additional planning board and town board votes on dates the town has yet to set.
