KANNAPOLIS — After much back and forth, the Kannapolis City Council ultimately decided at its April 22 meeting to approve a conditional rezoning request for a townhome development project located on Irish Glen Drive, West C Street and Glenn Avenue. 

The developer, M/I Homes, asked that just under 48 acres be rezoned from office-institutional to residential 8 conditional in order to build 233 townhomes, a pool and additional amenities. At its March 19 meeting, the planning and zoning commission voted to move forward with the request, but it did not meet the three-fourths majority threshold, so the matter had to go before the city council.

A few of the items the commission felt needed to be addressed included parking, traffic, an increased buffer, the number of units, tree preservation, Glenn Avenue improvements and the speed limit on West C Street. 

Planning Director Richard Smith advised the city council that the development is consistent with the Move Kannapolis Forward 2030 Comprehensive Plan. He also said M/I Homes has managed the commission’s worries by increasing the buffer to 20 feet from 6 feet, increasing the number of parking spaces from 42 to 90, having 15.4 acres of open space instead of 9.33, having an arborist review the area for tree preservation, and not constructing more than 233 housing units. 

“This is not a product that you will find in the Charlotte market currently. We’re designing a product for the site, we want it to be a good fit for Kannapolis,” Jeremy Smith, an M/I Homes representative, said during the meeting on Monday night. 

As a way to minimize traffic, a proposed deceleration lane for the access point on West C Street is being considered. 

When asked about the entrance and exit on Glenn Avenue, Smith said it is mandated that there be a second one for the development. There was consideration about having the other entrance on West C Street, but it was not practical. 

During the presentation, Council Member Ryan Dayvault and Mayor Pro Tem Doug Wilson brought up the idea of decreasing the speed limits for West C Street and Glenn Avenue. Since West C Street is state controlled, Kannapolis will need to receive permission from the North Carolina Department of Transportation to complete this action.

City Manager Mike Legg said in the next few city council meetings, they will bring back a resolution asking the NCDOT to reduce the West C Street speed limit and recommend changing the Glenn Avenue speed limit. 

Kannapolis resident Megan Hollaway, who lives on Glenn Avenue, spoke during the public comment period to share her opinion on why the development should not proceed as is.

“My concern is the traffic that it’s going to bring to the side road Glenn. Reducing the speed limit is not going to change traffic because people speed anyways,” Hollaway said. “When two cars bypass each other somebody’s got to run off the road, somebody’s got to stop. There’s a lot of families that ride their bike, walk their pets that cut through the area just to get to the park. I just feel like we don’t need to have an entrance at all from that area.”

Hollaway specified she is not against growth for the city, but she thought speed bumps would have been a worthwhile compromise to ensure the safety for her family and neighbors. 

“If you don’t live over here then you don’t know. You have no idea what it’s like to live on this street or have your teenagers have to pay attention when backing out of the driveway because somebody might be flying down the road doing 45 in a 35. Changing it to 25? That’s ridiculous,” Hollaway said.