Developers filing again for SouthPark development, shedding protest petition
Synco Properties Inc. and Schlosser Development Corp. are starting fresh with a rezoning request in SouthPark and shedding a protest petition against their planned mixed-use development at the site of The Colony apartment complex.
Synco and Schlosser filed a rezoning application late last year for the 27-acre site, seeking approval for a project with up to 1,100 residential units, 250,000 square feet of office space, 300,000 square feet of retail space (including a grocery store) and a boutique hotel with up to 300 rooms.
In March, a trio of commercial real estate owners including Cameron and Dee-Dee Harris filed a protest petition against the rezoning, citing concerns about the development’s density, its impact on traffic and how it would blend with surrounding properties.
A tool used by neighbors to challenge rezonings, a protest petition triggers a requirement that three-fourths of City Council members approve a rezoning request rather than a simple majority. Last week, for example, a rezoning request for a mixed-use project in midtown facing a protest petition fell short of the nine votes required for it to pass, although City Council will reconsider that decision this evening.
This summer, however, N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law a bill that repealed the protest petition. Rezoning requests filed after July 31 can’t be stymied by protest petitions. So Synco and Schlosser withdrew their original rezoning application, and they are filing a new rezoning request today, with no possibility of a protest petition.
“We’d be crazy not to, with the new legislation that came through,” says Collin Brown, a lawyer with K&L Gates who is representing Synco and Schlosser.
The developers made some changes to their plan based on feedback from surrounding neighborhoods, says Tim Hose, president of Synco Properties. A 10-story office building up to 160 feet tall along Colony Road has been reduced to eight stories and 140 feet, and a hotel planned at Colony and Sharon roads has been moved to the interior of the site and lowered to 75 feet in height from 100 feet.
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Charlotte Business Journal
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