Destinations

(Steve Shipley, courtesy of Youtube)

Eastern Gaston County should be excited about the opening late last winter of the US National Whitewater Center . The center is located just across the Catawba River in Mecklenburg County from the Stowe Family YMCA in Mt. Holly.

However there are more than a few folks still fussin’ about the park.

The Whitewater Center is rapidly becoming a major regional and national destination site for “outdoors people”. In July alone, over 70,000 people visited to raft, kayak, climb, and mountain bike. In late July, an international competition for teens was held. That competition was the world championships for sprint kayaking. 

Several of the high school and college aged children of our Belmont and Mt. Holly neighbors have summer jobs at the Center. From all reports, it is a very busy and exciting place.

But, people are still upset that Belmont and Mt. Holly governments invested in the underwriting or “underpinning” of the non-profit organization. Over at the Gaston County Watchdog, a politically conservative rant forum, people are still angry.

What occurred was the local governments pledged funds to the park to cover any operating losses for a set number of years. Mt. Holly pledged a million dollars ($1,000, 000), Belmont pledged $500,000. Several other communities pledged funds including Gastonia and Charlotte. Everything is based on a percentage of “investment”. If the park were to operate at a loss of, let’s say, $1,000,000 in the first year, the participating cities would cover their percentage share to bring the operating account back to zero. We can’t remember the percentages of the overall participation rates, but even IF the Mt. Holly percentage would be 10%, their share would equal $100,000.

With all that being said, the center has had six months of surplus operating revenue that should balance the losses incurred when the opening was delayed by the road issue. So, it is possible that the cities may not even be called to “pony-up” for first year funding.

None of us care for increased taxes or anything that could potentially take money out of our pocket without our expressed permission. That is why we have an elected, representative government at all levels. There is too much suspicion and hand-wringing. That is not even enough to consider a $.01 addition to the property tax rate. Area towns even cut tax rates this summer due to increased property valuations.

We do have a community responsibility to share in economic development costs, and an expectation to share in its rewards. In this case, there are tourism dollars spent in Belmont and Mt. Holly. Restaurants in both towns are seeing vistors, the ABC store in Mt. Holly certainly is doing well. People have also secured summer and permanent jobs.  

So why are a few making a fuss?

  (Belmont Reserve)

Belmont and Mt. Holly are both attempting to deal with the massive planned home construction in their own ways. “Belmont City Council has approved construction of 2,269 homes in 17 developments, from condominiums to single-family homes on 68,000-square-foot lots. That would mean about 1,408 more school-age students in Belmont, according to calculations from Gaston County Schools.”

Of course, neither the city or the county schools have the ability to provide land for school construction. The city is averse to requiring developers to provide land in their plans because of a ” building time-frame requirement” for use as imposed by the school board. The county school sytem doesn’t want to specify a site or approximate site due to continued demographic changes.

  (Gaston Gazette)

Last night, August 7, the city council approved the Belmont Estates schematic plans without rezoning or special conditions. However the new plans for this particular project call for a greater density (55′ x 125′ lots), 235 lots,  and no second connectivity point out of the project. That means all the traffic will be dumped out onto the two-lane South Point Road, right below the High School. Adrian Miller, staff member of the Belmont Planning Department, said that the project still needs to go through the technical review process and brought back to the P&Z board for approval, then back to council.

Councilmembers, Charlie Flowers and Becky Burch, who oppose planning processes in general under the guise of “property rights”, voted with the majority to allow another development to progress in the bottleneck area around the high school.

Belmont Reserve is another project that is under construction. This project, at the intersection of Eagle Road and South Main Street, is the re-development of the old Belmont Hosiery mill property. 14 units are about three-quarters complete, and signs posted on the windows of 11, say that they are “sold”. It appears that the markets for the Belmont Reserve are “empty nesters”, and young professionals. Just an opinion, but they are dinky, and when built out will be tightly packed together.

  (Belmont Reserve)

One of the “good” projects that fit with the surrounding community and the TND philosophy of managed growth is the Belmont Village project. Located on Myrtle Street, smack in the middle between South Main and South Central Avenue and across from the middle school, this project re-uses the old A&P grocery store site. Lots of steps up will be required, but the look is similar to many urban townhomes along the east coast cities.

      (Village Park)

We will provide some information and discussion of the South Point Road/High School area projects sometime in the next week. Overall, we are concerned about the proper development of in-fill projects being a fit under the neighborhood preservation and traditional neighborhood development (TND) policies.

See the next Belmont Front Porch entry about our feelings about the City Council vote on August 7 in regards to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan.  

Source Articles: Belmont About to Boom, Mt. Holly Looks Ahead On Growth With Caution

Well, the “McMansions” have officially arrived in the old Belmont city limits. The newly re-zoned/de-zoned property at the “Point” of North Main and North Central has its first of three, large, and some might say, out of place, homes facing the Sacred Heart Campus.

If you remember, a group led by Griffin Keel, sought to rezone/de-zone the former Lineberger property. The first step was to remove the “Historical Property” designation from the 1920’s-era mansion, then rezone the property to accomodate up to four lots on the remaining “empty” portion closest to the “point”.

Property tax hungry city council members quietly and quickly agreed to the deal and plan for “new homes”. Through this spring and summer, more than 40 huge 100+ year old oak, poplar, and maple trees were removed to accomodate the homes of the new water-users and (hopefully) contributing community members.

The older homes in the neighborhood, most dating from the 1930’s and older, are large and welcoming, but neither pretentious or out-of-place. There are just a few empty lots along Main Street and Central. We hope they don’t meet this fate.

McMansions occur when people feel the need to fill-in established neighborhoods with oversized homes for their oversized “need”. Your home may be worth a lot, but beware, “a lot” means something completely different to the carpetbagger developers who have discovered our fair town.