Burlington’s elected leaders have agreed to carry the water for a group of extraterritorial residents who are fed up with runoff from an unfinished subdivision on the city’s northern periphery.
Burlington’s city council pledged to take LGI Homes to task earlier this week after its members heard a cascade of complaints about the 128-acre project that this Texas-based firm has in the works between Old Glencoe Road and the southern banks of the Haw River.
Dubbed River Run, this sprawling subdivision originally received the city’s zoning approval in 2006 after another company submitted a detailed plan to develop this acreage near Old Glencoe Road’s juncture with NC 62 North. The city went on to annex the property before the whole venture fell victim to the housing crisis that preceded the global economic meltdown of 2008.
The plans for River Run were relegated to the back of the shelf until 2021 when LGI Homes purchased the property at a cost of nearly $2.3 million. In 2022, a staff-level technical review committee approved a preliminary plat for the subdivision based on the original zoning from 2006. Since then, the city’s inspection department has issued a handful of permits for infrastructure, stormwater management, and erosion control measures – the latest of which obtained the department’s all-clear on May 22 of this year.
Since the inspections department issued these permits, LGI homes has hired contractors to clear and grade the subdivision’s proposed site. Yet, the manner in which this work has progressed has rankled a number of people who live in a small unincorporated neighborhood due east of the property.
The council heard from several of these reluctant neighbors on Monday when it convened a special-called meeting to make up a regularly-scheduled gathering that it canceled last week due to citywide flooding.
Among those who appeared before the council that evening was Charles Gupton of Mathis Trail – a short, private road that runs through the unincorporated area along River Walk’s eastern frontier. Gupton lamented that the brunt of River Walk’s runoff has descended on his road as well as another privately maintained route called Freeman Trail.
“LGI Homes has created a huge, unsustainable issue for all of us by clear cutting all the trees and ground cover,” Gupton recalled during a designated public comment period on Monday. “Because of that grading work there’s nothing to slow down and filter the runoff…The runoff is also washing out our private road to the degree that fire trucks, EMT, delivery services, and contractors cannot risk their vehicles and safety to serve us.”
Gupton noted that flooding has been especially bad along Freeman Trail, where an unfinished retaining wall has been funneled rainwater runoff directly onto the land of his neighbor John Hurdle.
Hurdle was himself present on Monday to share a first-hand account of this problem with Burlington’s leaders.
“They raised the level of the dirt behind me,” recalled the 40-year resident of Freeman Trail, “and I’m now the drain for that whole quarter.”
Gupton went on to concede that, when he first grew concerned about the runoff from River Walk, one of LGI’s contractors had tried to deflect the blame onto the city officials who had signed off on the development’s erosion and runoff controls. Gupton added, however, that own experience has shown city staff members to be responsive and diligent in their efforts to address the dilemma.
The council received some additional background on the staff’s contributions from Bob Patterson, who serves as the city’s executive director for water services and engineering.
Patterson recalled that the city’s inspectors had initially found River Walk’s site to be in full compliance with all state and municipal regulations for stormwater management. He added that this remained the case until May when the project’s contractor quit the site due to an “apparent lack of payment from the developer.”
“Since that time, our staff has tried to get the developer seeding,” he added. “Then, this storm came along, and the amount of rainfall [exacerbated] the whole situation.”
Patterson noted that, at this point, the city’s mandated stormwater and erosion controls remain incomplete, accounting for much of the runoff that has inundated Mathis and Freeman trails. He also pointed to the potential involvement of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers due to the effect this erosion may have on the Haw River.
“Staff has issued a notice of violation to LGI and will be following up with them to try to get them back on site and get corrections made,” he added. “So, there is a compounding effect on the developer for not taking care of this in the first place.”
According to Burlington’s city attorney David Huffman, the developer’s alleged lapses may provide the site’s neighbors with sufficient grounds to take LGI to court over the runoff. The council, however, wasn’t content to let this suggestion stand as the city’s final word on this issue.
Burlington’s mayor Jim Butler argued that the city may have a moral imperative to intervene on behalf of the site’s neighbors.
“There’s a humanitarian effect that I think takes precedence over civil matters,” he added.
Butler went on to instruct Huffman to look for ways that the city could exert its influence on behalf of the neighbors. The rest of the council was quick to back up this directive, which the mayor said may ultimately level the proverbial ground in favor of the existing homeowners.
“We’ll get our city attorney and our leadership team on this,” he insisted, “and we’ll work with the state of North Carolina to leverage all the resources to find a solution to this.”
