Back in 2022, everything appeared to be a go for June Staton Goodman to sell her 58 rural acres for a community of older-adult luxury homes in east Mooresville, 6 1/2 miles from Lake Norman.
Now two years later, the 82-year-old Goodman finds herself in a months-long legal battle over the future of her land, that began in Superior Court and next headed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals to decide its fate.
“I’m very frustrated,” Goodman told The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday about her unexpected court dispute with the town of Mooresville.
The governing board rejected her rezoning request for the homes last year, setting off a wave of legal wrangling between her and the town that has cost her upwards of $400,000.
“Who could ever think you would have a piece of land and can’t sell it?”
Plan for homes “well received” by neighbors
Goodman received full buy-in from neighbors at a community meeting she hosted in 2022 where she served “a variety of refreshments,” including pound cake, iced tea and coffee, Mooresville Planning Department documents show.
The town requires such meetings when a property owner requests a rezoning.
Goodman’s proposed Courtyards at Brumley Farms development would include 107 single-story homes geared to adults 55 and older, according to the plans by Mooresville-based Realco Development Corp., which has an option to buy Goodman’s land.
The developer’s plan for the homes at Oakridge Farm Highway (N.C. 150) and Wiggins Road “was well received by all attendees, who expressed enthusiasm about the project,” according to Mooresville Planning Department documents.
Farmland for more than a century
Goodman’s grandparents bought the land 115 years ago and raised pigs and cows, plus crops used as feed for the animals — barley, wheat, oats and corn, she told the Observer.
Her dad farmed the land for several years but eventually rented the acreage to others to farm, she said.
Her son, Reid Goodman, who died in 2021, had previously suggested she sell the land.
June Goodman said a market exists for nice single-level homes for Lake Norman residents who want to downsize, and she saw such quality homes at the lake built by Epcon Communities.
“I liked what they did,” she said, adding that Epcon would be the builder in her development.
Promise to protect streams
In a March 2023 letter to the Mooresville Planning Department, Goodman agreed to have no more than two homes per acre in the development.
She also promised to add vegetation to protect streams on her land, leave at least 25 acres for common open space and build a paved greenway trail with easement dedicated to the town.
The trail would connect with future greenway trails on neighboring properties, according to Goodman’s letter that’s included in her lawsuit against the town.
The measures were among eight conditions proposed by town planners that Goodman agreed to get town rezoning and annexation approval, according to Goodman’s application with the town.
Planning Board backed the development
Town officials also suggested Goodman and Realco provide a second entrance to the Courtyards at Brumley Farm, but that proved tougher to pull off, a project consultant said in the Planning Department documents.
Building one alternative would have cost $2 million, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation “flatly rejected” a proposal to expand an emergency drive onto nearby Landis Highway, according to the documents.
A neighboring family told Goodman and Realco that they had no interest in a third option: putting a road across the family’s land from the development.
Still, the Mooresville Planning Board voted 6-to-1 last year to recommend a rezoning for the development to the Mooresville Board of Commissioners, which has final say on rezonings.
Months later, on Aug. 7, 2023, commissioners rejected the rezoning over traffic safety, emergency response and environmental concerns, namely, the impact on streams.
Goodman and Realco sued the town in Iredell County Civil Superior Court, saying in the lawsuit that their development “should have been approved by the Town of Mooresville.”
They listed the reasons why.
”Plaintiffs made diligent efforts to address the additional development options” regarding a second entrance, but “NCDOT denied any request to change the emergency access to a right-in, right-out access,” according to the lawsuit.
Regardless, “the Town has approved other projects with only one full entrance, which have more traffic and produce more traffic than our project,” the lawsuit says.
The town’s 2008 zoning ordinance required only one entrance to the project, Goodman and Realco president James McKnight said in the lawsuit.
And “no one spoke against our project at the Planning Board meeting” and two public hearings before the town Board of Commissioners, according to the lawsuit.
“We obtained the proper permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality regarding stream and environmental mitigation,” Goodman and McKnight added in the lawsuit. “In other words, we had obtained all approvals and resolved any and all issues related to the streams on the property.”
Judge backs town’s rezoning rejection
Goodman and Realco representatives presented that information at the Board of Commissioner’s Aug. 7, 2023 meeting, “and the Board summarily voted to deny the Application with out further discussion or inquiry,” the lawsuit stated.
Their application and development plan also comply with the town’s current land use ordinance “and would be in the public interest,” Goodman and Realco said in the lawsuit.
Town planners reviewed their plan “multiple times, and seven revisions at the request of the Planning Department” over a year,” according to the lawsuit.
Still, on March 21, Judge R. Stuart Albright ruled that town commissioners cited valid reasons for rejecting the rezoning and he was ruling in favor of the town, court records show.
On April 17, Mooresville lawyer Kevin Donaldson gave written notice of appeal on behalf of Goodman and Realco to the state Court of Appeals.
Donaldson told the Observer on Wednesday that he’s willing to work with the town toward a resolution to the case. A town spokesman said she was checking with town officials for a comment.
Goodman said the legal fight has cost her side $400,000 or $500,000.
“The developers kindly take care of that,” she said.
But the town, she said, “should refund the money back.”
Source Agencies
