Roads

(City of  Belmont photo)

The City of Belmont grew larger after the September 4 council meeting approving a voluntary annexation request by Southland Resources.

34 additional acres just south of South Point High School will be incorporated into the city. Southland Resources plan to build as many as 118 homes on the narrow stretch of land now called South Point Village.

Apparently, one road will feed the new development, and the land will be clear-cut of trees to enable the site to be worked for higher density house placement. The current site is a mixture of pasture and woodland.

More importantly, this development has not yet received permission to build an outlet road through the South Ridge Development that lies just west of the high school campus. South Ridge has its only access road feeding onto an already congested Nixon Road.

The annexation was approved unanimously, with property rights advocates, Charlie Flowers and Charlie Martin, bringing the proposal to the table.

Our concern is two-fold on this annexation and proposed development. First is the road access. Under Traditional Neighborhood (TND) guidelines that the city attempts to live by, roads in developments will be interconnecting and have multiple outlets. The proposed development has neither. Second, a rush to approve clear-cutting in developments concerns us a a community. Developers like to get rid of as many trees, mature or not, to increase the density for the greenspace set asides. Of course trees can be planted.

However, non-native species of trees, ornamentals, and indiscriminate plantings affect the whole community over time.

Lifelong resident and retired Duke Power employee, George Hall, pointed out a concern over the massive clear-cutting that is taking place in the Belmont area. He noted that several older developments, Glenmere and Fallingbrook, incorporated the mature trees into their plans. Of course these developments were also 1-acre lots. The new developments are cramming 3 sometimes 4, and in rare occasions 5 lots in an acre of land.

The Hawthorne project that was recently completed in the old Imperial Mill Village area, did a very good job in the replantings. The developer, Bob Clay, representing Pharr Yarns, replanted oaks, maples, poplars, birches, and several versions of evergreens.  

We need more people to participate in “watchdog” type of activities as developments are brought to the council for approval. This is a development happy group that only looks out after the city coffers for the growing city employee population, not the taxpayer.

Crew’s constracted by the NCDOT to repave South Main Street/Armstrong Ford Road from Myrtle all the way out to the Fish Camps have been working hard for the past week and a half.

The paving project has been needed.

Large, heavy trucks having been using this route as a cut-through from both South Carolina and southeast Gastonia to access Hwy 273 and the new I-485. With all the home construction going on in the area, cement mixer trucks have also been using this stretch of road.

The workers have been kind enough to schedule around the school traffic in the morning and late afternoon. One lane is blocked for several minutes and inbound/outbound traffic is alternately routed through the construction.

The result is a very nicely paved road. Just watch out for a while, because it is unmarked pavement, and in the dark approaching the South Fork bridge, the road can be deceiving.  

Gazette Article reporting that the Eagle Mountain Finishing Millis closing. It is located at Eagle Road and Eastwood Drive on the Belmont-Cramerton limits line.

Speculator/Developer, Mark Godley of Charlotte, trying to keep his investment listed as a “hot property” says that there is a “suspect” that will be bring 250 jobs and $75 million of investment to the huge “big box”.

It is difficult to believe.

We hope Cramerton town officials and the developers from the Eagle Park project, just across the street, have all participated in any of Mr. Godley’s discussions. Cramerton Town Manager Michael Peoples, said, “…having Eagle Mountain close will mean $25,000 lost in tax revenue.”  (Notice he didn’t say, Per Year, ??)

Sounds like “government-speak”  for water rate increases to us —

This property also borders the proposed Belmont-Mt. Holly Connector road. Belmont officials are pinning a lot of development hopes on the success of an additional spine artery down the Belmont Peninsula.

Let’s just say everyone is smart enough to have discussed this, and the artery south is just what a warehousing business needs to connect to the Garden Parkway and make connections to I-485 and I-77 for south and east. North to an intersection at I-85 is also a possibility. It will still probably take a good 20 years to get these roads built. In the meantime, the Lakewood, Timberlake, and even Glenmere subdivisions will see property value decreases (from a decreased resale market and resistance to buy nearby this major road and industry).

But hey, we are just citizens, not town planners with Masters degrees in Public Administration.