Family has an idea for their...

Wes Hunter is the ninth generation of his family to grow crops near present-day Lake Norman, a lineage dating to the 1700s.

“I’ve been around a lot of farmers, met a lot of farmers,” he said. “I’ve never met a ninth-generation farmer. Never met a ninth-generation anything.”

Ten or 12 years ago, he and his father, Gene, worked nearly 700 acres from east Huntersville to Mount Mourne in southern Iredell County near Mooresville, he said.

In recent years, they’ve farmed at a loss, Wes Hunter said.

“Last season, we had soybeans on 160 acres, and it cost us money to have a crop,” he said. “When we were done with harvest, we were in the hole, and it cost us money to pay the bills.”

Gene Hunter, 74, finally put 36 of his acres, off Bailey Road near N.C. 115, under contract to Charlotte developer Greenberg Gibbons Properties.

Only weeds have grown on the property since, as the developer tries again Monday night to get town rezoning approval for a $39 million business park.

Cornelius Business Park would sprout directly across from the town’s recreational Bailey Road Park. The business park would include four Class A flex office buildings, generate 175 to 250 jobs and contribute $300,000 in annual tax revenue to the town and Mecklenburg County, according to figures from the developer.

The buildings would total 188,100 square feet. A 40-foot vegetative buffer would screen the park from Bailey Road, according to the developer’s plans.

Opponents cite potential traffic

Neighbors, including from the Bailey’s Glen active older-adult community, have long spoken out against allowing commercial or industrial buildings on the property, in part because of the trucks they said such buildings would add to an already clogged road.

The developer initially proposed five buildings totaling 198,000 square feet, but withdrew the plan amid opposition, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

Four years ago, the Hunter family’s real estate agent “had a credible residential buyer” for the property, Wes Hunter told the Observer at the site Wednesday. “As they approached the town, they were told this would never be residential. So (the buyer) walked. I don’t blame them. Not mad at them.”

And that’s why a business park was proposed, he said.

“We looked at our land use plan and asked, ‘What does the town want here?’” Hunter said. “The land use plan says business campus, so our broker found a developer.

“What they want to build here is the definition of the Cornelius business campus land plan for this piece of property.”

Instead, Hunter said, “we’re jumping through hoops. The developer has jumped through hoops, many hurdles. Everything has stayed positive to this point. We hope that’s the way it remains.”

On social media, a group called Bailey Road Friends urges residents to oppose the rezoning at Monday’s 6 p.m. meeting of the Cornelius Board of Commissioners, where the board is scheduled to vote on the request.

“This rezoning decision has the potential to impact traffic patterns, infrastructure, and the overall character of the area surrounding our schools and the park,” the group wrote, referring to nearby Bailey Middle and Hough High schools.

“As parents, we understand you care deeply about the safety and well-being of our children and the quality of our community spaces,” the group wrote.

Traffic-clogged Cornelius intersection

The Bailey Road-N.C. 115 intersection notoriously backs up with cars, including from the schools.

Town planning staff also opposes the rezoning, senior planner Aaron Turk told the Cornelius Planning Board before the board voted 7-1 on May 21 in favor of recommending the rezoning to the Board of Commissioners.

The town has long envisioned a larger, business campus-type development for the site and adjacent, similarly private acreage, Turk said. He cited LakePointe Corporate Center in Charlotte and North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis as examples.

The Cornelius parcels total about 200 acres, planning staff said.

The smaller business park proposed on Gene Hunter’s land also wouldn’t mesh with plans for a park and greenway on surrounding acreage, Turk said.

The Planning Board vote to the contrary followed assurances by the developer that its planned road improvements would alleviate Bailey Road traffic snarls, not add to them.

Improvements would include a roundabout at the entrance to the business park and an additional turn lane at N.C. 115 and Bailey Road, Hunter said. That would make three lanes at the intersection — a left-turn, a through lane and a right-turn, he said.

“And trust me, I drive this road regularly, I have two daughters at Hough High at the end of the road,” Hunter said. “There is a traffic problem here, and through our years talking about this development, what the problems are here, nobody has stepped forward to address any traffic issues, except this developer.”

He said the town’s addition of a third lane at similarly clogged Westmoreland Road and U.S. 21 instantly cleared chronic backups.

“We were kind of blown away by that,” Hunter said about the town’s vision of a 200-acre business park on the combined properties.

“A 200-acre business park?” he said. “If you think traffic’s an issue now, I can just only imagine what that would look like.”

About the opposition to his much smaller proposal, he said: “I get it that they’re concerned. Our family considers them neighbors. I would also say that their concerns of traffic are legitimate.

“We believe that this developer, for our property to sell and be developed, this will be a minimal impact on the traffic issue here,” Hunter said. “Plus, he’s the only one looking to help that issue.”

Hunter recognizes that the traffic study completed for the rezoning application “says trucks. And the developer has on many occasions brought that up. They have multiple businesses in this area, and they assure us that 18 wheelers are just not their customer base.

“Their customer base is straight delivery truck, van, service-industry, heating and air, plumbing, those kind of customers,” he said.

“We’ve tried to follow the rules,” Hunter said about his family’s yearslong ordeal. “We feel like we have followed the rules. The developer has followed the rules. The (town rules) say this is what’s supposed to be here.”

Proud of his family’s farming heritage

Wes Hunter said his family is “proud of our heritage. We’re proud of our home farm.

“We’re proud of what we do,” he said. “Feeding the world is not an easy job, and we’ve been doing it for quite some time.”

But “the piece of land we’re standing on is my father’s retirement,” he said. “He needs to retire. I have a couple of girls that I mentioned. We have college looming. I can see it out there.

“Paying for college isn’t something fun to think about, but this land is that as well.”