Lincoln County

‘You can only make roads so big’: Charlotte region launches first transit plan

Leaders from across the region gathered Monday in a conference room at Charlotte Douglas International Airport with an ambitious goal: Creating a comprehensive plan for public transit, covering a dozen counties and setting the transit agenda for decades.  Called CONNECT Beyond, the 18-month planning effort by the Centralina Council of Governments is, to put it simply, big. The planning area covers 12 counties, in two states, with 17 different transit systems. Previous transit planning efforts have been focused mostly on one county at a time. The goal here is to come up with a plan to coordinate and prioritize projects, as well as funding requests, across the whole region.  “Twenty years from now, I think everyone is going to look back on this as the jumping-off point,” said John Muth, the Charlotte Area Transit System’s chief development officer. 

Can we build our way out of the housing affordability crisis?

There’s a growing consensus that if we want to get out of the housing affordability mess we’re in, we need to hear a lot more swinging hammers. Policymakers, developers and housing advocates are all talking about the need to build more, and more of everything: single-family houses, duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, townhouses and apartments. It’s fast become the conventional wisdom that we need to lower regulatory barriers, streamline the development process and unleash the power of the market on our housing problems by allowing as much density as possible.

Single-family construction once dominated Mecklenburg, but that’s changed

After the 2008 recession, apartments came to dominate housing construction in Charlotte, reversing longstanding trends and outpacing the number of single-family buildings. What factors led to this, and will this furious pace of construction be sustainable?

Charlotte suburbs grow faster as developers seek cheap land

Development has been sprawling. Places that were once rural now seem urban. Take Fort Mill, S.C., whose population, according to the American Community Survey, has nearly doubled since 2010. Many small towns have grown into bustling suburbs as developers search for large tracts of land to build residential communities. As the population grows, low-cost land and high volume are necessary to meet the regions demand for single family housing.

Study: Charlotte region lags in food economy, farmers markets

A new report finds Charlotte and its region are underperforming in many measurements of its local food economy. 

Feds want metro transportation planning less fractured. Good luck with that.

Transportation planning in the greater Charlotte region is split among five planning groups. Will a federal push to consolidate make a difference?

How prevalent is multifamily throughout the Charlotte region?

The old planners’ joke is that Americans hate two things for their cities—urban sprawl and high density. PlanCharlotte examined where in this metro region multifamily is, and where it isn’t. Some communities, hoping to attract more Millennials, want more multifamily. Others’ long-range plans discourage multifamily development.

Some suburbs facing the dilemma of high growth vs. low taxes

In cities and counties surrounding Charlotte, tensions are swirling over rapid residential growth and – especially – how to pay for it. Can their low tax rates support urban services new residents want? (Explore interactive maps.)

Lincolnton: Moving beyond a textile town past

The town of Lincolnton, population 10,500, is making it easier for manufacturers to come to town, since the textile industry has left industrial sites vacant. The installment of “Talk of the Towns” interviews Lincolnton Planning Director Laura Simmons.

I-77: Expressway to prosperity

The first decade of growth on the lake had been slow—a cluster of cabins here and a marina there. The lack of infrastructure and the distance from major population centers kept growth in check.