Council Quickies: Forest Park Residents Face Displacement

Charlotte City Council held its monthly zoning meeting on Monday night, with a large group of residents showing up to speak out against a rezoning petition on Prosperity Church Road near Highland Creek where 60 households are scheduled to be displaced from the Forest Park mobile home park. 

Zoning meetings are split into two parts: zoning decisions, in which they vote on whether to approve or deny petitions; and hearings, during which developers are able to present their plans, residents are able to speak in support or opposition, and council members are able to discuss before the decision is scheduled for a later date.

Below, we’ve included some notable examples of both decisions and hearings from Monday night’s meeting.

On the Agenda:

• Zoning Decisions
• Forest Park Displacement
• Other Hearings

Zoning Decisions

In its first vote of the night, council approved a petition proposing the development of a 110-unit apartment complex on the corner of Sugar Creek Road and Glory Street just north of the Sugar Creek/North Tryon intersection, across from Hidden Valley.

LaWana Mayfield pulled that item from the consent agenda due to concerns about traffic, with the development expected to add around 800 trips per day. She was the only No vote for the petition.

Council unanimously approved a development that will bring hundreds of townhomes and dozens of single-family homes to Providence Road. 

A group of neighbors opposed the plan during the April hearing, though Ed Driggs committed to working with them to clear up any concerns. Following the April meeting, developers brought the total number of multifamily units down from 220 to 210 and the number of six-unit buildings from 20 to 15. Other changes to the petition included an increase in parking and a decrease in some of the proposed buildings’ maximum heights.

City staff originally opposed the development, but recommended approval before Monday night’s meeting. Council approved the petition unanimously without any discussion. 

Council unanimously approved a petition to build up to 88 multifamily attached units and one single-family home on a lot off Toddville Road in the Paw Creek area of northwest Charlotte. The developer has committed to reserving 30% of units for families making 80% or less of the average median income (AMI).

Forest Park Displacement

Council brought in translators to help council hear from and communicate with Spanish-speaking residents who showed up to speak against the proposed development of nearly 400 units on a property off Prosperity Church Road in the Highland Creek area where they are set to be displaced as residents of the existing Forest Park mobile home park.

“The owner made the difficult decision of selling the property after 60 years,” said a rep for the developer. “Though this does not come without its challenges, it’s important to clarify that with or without this rezoning, the mobile home operations are set to shutter on May 29, 2026.”

She added that the potential buyer of the property is willing to work with residents of Forest Park “on a transition plan over the next month or so.”

Residents at Forest Park own their mobile homes and rent the lots on which those homes sit for $500 a month on rolling 30-day leases.

Four Spanish-speaking residents addressed council, tearfully at times, followed by a few English-speaking folks who called on council to deny the petition.

“I’ve been living in ‘The Park’ for 20 years,” said resident Joshua Teague. “I’ve found a home there, I’ve found neighbors that I consider friends and family and when times were hard I could turn to them. I don’t want to leave The Park, I want to stay with my family.”

Another resident explained that the age of most of the units and additions made to them over time makes it impossible to move them. “We are not against development but we are against displacement. This is not just a development, it’s a community. We are homeowners. We can’t afford to just leave it all behind.

“My mother and many of my neighbors are immigrants who work hard every day to provide for their families and now have something else to worry about besides being ripped from their families,” he continued. “We thought our representatives would protect us from situations like this.”

Carter Siegel, a regional director with petitioner Wood Partners, addressed council following the speeches from opposing speakers. 

“We’re in the business to build communities and I completely appreciate the spirit and the emotion behind me,” he said of the crowd behind him, often turning around to address them directly during his response. 

“The owners that own this mobile home park have owned it since the 1960s,” Siegel said. “The city has changed a lot since the 1960s. This used to be farmland and now we have an interstate next door. It’s become a critical part of Charlotte’s growth corridor.

“What we can commit to today before council is that we will do everything, we will work to try to make their transition reasonable,” said Siegel. 

Siegel told council that the current property owners first warned residents of their plan to sell the property a year ago.

Dimple Ajmera pointed out that multiple residents claimed they were not given sufficient notice despite the petitioner’s claims. An attorney for developers clarified that bilingual letters first went out to residents in May 2024. “There hasn’t been any significant movement in the time since.”

Ajmera and Tiawana Brown said they would be keeping up with the work of grassroots organizers with Action NC who are helping the displaced families. They implied that whether the petitioners do follow through on their promises to help in those efforts will play a part in how they vote when the petition comes up for decision. 

Addressing residents in Spanish before switching to English, Marjorie Molina called the rezoning “one of the most difficult petitions I’ve seen in a long time,” emphasizing that there’s already been a decision to sell the property and that’s not up to Wood Partners.

“There’s two things happening here; there’s displacement and there’s a rezoning, they are two separate things,” Molina continued. She and others said they will stay involved with how the city can provide help for families who will be displaced next May regardless of how the petition goes.

“The reason we’re squirming here is that we don’t like to see things like this happen and yet it’s not up to us,” said Ed Driggs.

Speaking last among council members, district rep Renee Johnson thanked the Forest Park residents who showed up to speak. “I know this is difficult for everyone and I want you to know that we hear you.

“The issue is affordability in the city,” she continued. “Where do people go where they can pay $500 a month? And these residents have taken extra steps to protect themselves in purchasing a mobile home … This is a bigger issue for this council. We need to look at it from a policy perspective.”

Other Hearings

DreamKey Partners is petitioning to build a development of 40 townhomes across from the McCrorey YMCA on Beatties Ford Road. They will offer workforce homeownership opportunities with 30% of the homes being made available to folks making 80% or less of the local AMI.

Sage Investment Group (SIG) is petitioning to transition 125 hotel rooms into residential units on Tuckaseegee Road. Southern Comfort Inn operated at the site until it was shut down in 2022 and a nonprofit named Love in Action took it over in 2023.

The site’s closure will be contingent on the successful re-housing of all current tenants. SIG has committed to implementing an anti-displacement strategy in partnership with Crisis Assistance Ministry that includes minimum 90-day notice for tenants, individual re-housing plans for each tenant, and weekly coordination meetings to monitor progress.

RangeWorks is proposing to build one of its new “urban driving range” facilities, its first in the country, on Bryant Street in what’s been dubbed the Iron District off Morehead Street just outside of Uptown.

Though it looks similar to Topgolf, leaders with RangeWorks insist it differs in that it is not anchored in entertainment, food and beverage but serves more serious golfers looking to meet and practice near Uptown.