SALISBURY — The Rowan County Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance in March setting up rules and regulations for future racing complexes, and that new ordinance returned before the planning board on Monday to clear up some confusion between the county and applicant Mooresville Motorsports Complex.

The amendment that the commissioners approved set out rules for race track facilities with multiple tracks or usages, stand-alone race tracks would still require a special-use permit. Those rules encompassed multiple categories, including traffic, location, noise and hours of operation. The issue that was raised with the ordinance on Monday was the required minimum lot size acreage for each of the separate usages in the complex. In the new ordinance, tier one usages such as motor speedways and drag strips require 50 acres. Tier two usages such as go-kart tracks, motorcycles or ATV tracks or other motorized vehicle tracks require 20 acres. Tier three usages such as bicycle or animal tracks require 10 acres. If different tier usages are included in a complex, the tier two or three tracks only require half of the acreage, so a drag strip and go-kart track would only need 60 acres. However, multiple of a single tier, such as a drag strip and motor speedway, would still require the full acreage.

As part of the process required by the new ordinance, the Mooresville Motorsports Complex submitted a site plan and noise study for their expansion and planning staff noticed that there were two drag strips, an existing paved one and a new dirt one, on the plan. What resulted was a discussion about the letter versus the intent of the ordinance.

Planning Director Ed Muire, who presented the staff report on the amendment, said that the way planning staff wrote and understood the ordinance, there were no specific allowances for same-type activity tracks to have a different minimum acreage than different-type tracks, such as the two tier-one usages of a drag strip and a motor speedway.

Muire highlighted the relevant part of the ordinance and said that staff’s understanding was that two different drag strips constituted two separate facilities without regard to how they could be used.

“To wit, a motor speedway and drag strip complex must have at least one hundred (100) acres; a go-kart and motorcycle complex must have at least forty (40) acres,” reads the portion of the ordinance that Muire highlighted.

Attorney Cindy Reid, who represented Mooresville Motorsports Complex, said they assumed that because the dirt and paved tracks were under the same category and could not be run simultaneously, that they would not need to acquire the extra 50 acres.

“During the process where we met with you and discussed the motorsports complex, we considered the dirt track and the asphalt track to be the same, just different racing options. Most importantly, when you’re running on the asphalt track, you can never run on the dirt track. They can never run at the same time and the same activities, so we assumed that they were the same. The noise study treated them as separate tracks and physically, they are separate tracks,” said Reid.

As a result of the misunderstanding, the two parties came up with a new amendment that clarifies whether two activity tracks of the same type require the additional acreage.

“Without increasing the acreage, if they can still meet those other things, the setbacks, the parking and those sort of performance evaluators, then does it really matter how many they’ve got?” said Muire.

The resulting amendment proposal states that two racing-activity tracks of the same type, such as the dirt and paved drag strips, do not require the additional acreage to establish the minimum lot size. Another section was included in the amendment, which stated that if a third racing track activity of the same type was included, then it would require an additional 50 percent of its stated acreage. For example, three drag strips would require 75 acres.

“Obviously, we’re always inclined, if we can make something work that’s not to the detriment of the surrounding community, to do that. I think this was a very new concept for a lot of us, so we missed pieces, figured that out and had to go back and amend it as long as it continues to make sense,” said Planning Board Chair Karla Foster Leonard.

The new ordinance was applied for and put before the planning board during its January meeting at the request of the Mooresville Motorsports Complex, who hoped to improve upon its current facilities and expand its operations. The planning staff’s report stated that specific requirements in the previous ordinances would be difficult for the track to implement, so it would be better to submit an amendment that would create specific standards for a multi-use racing complex.

That ordinance was recommended by the planning board and went before the commissioners during their second February meeting. The commissioners first voted to table any decision, wanting to answer community concerns by reducing the hours of operation if the complex has adjacent residential property and by changing the required acreage, before approving it during the second meeting in March. During those discussions, Rowan County Board of Commissioners Chairman Greg Edds said that he was not necessarily concerned about the ordinance in relation to the Mooresville complex, due to the amount of nearby businesses heavily outweighing residences, but that he was concerned about how the ordinances could spill over to the rest of the county.

After the discussion, the board voted unanimously to recommend the text amendment. The board’s decision is not final, as the recommendation will go before the Rowan County Board of Commissioners at a future meeting for a final decision.