Is this ‘smart growth’ in Lake Wylie? Love says it is.

She ran last election cycle on a platform of limited residential growth, so it’s easy to assume York County Councilwoman Allison Love’s take on another 842 homes coming to Lake Wylie.

Easy to assume wrong.

“Everything I’ve asked for, I’ve gotten from them,” Love said of Westport, a 432-acre property on S.C. 49 south of Five Points.

“I think it’s a great example of working with developers and not working against developers.”

Development Solutions Group is behind the project, part of a more than 2,000-acre planned development negotiated almost a decade ago. It is property where the county envisioned Daimler and other companies bringing scores of jobs. Westport is the residential piece.

Much of the land in the area sat dormant since about 2008. Now the developer is in discussions with builders. The first home should be complete in early 2019. Build-out will take about five years. Homes likely will price from the low $200,000 to high $300s range.

“This is the first one to come across to revitalize the Daimler site,” said DSG owner Kent Olson.

When the larger planned development was negotiated prior to recession, the intent was to take higher density residential zoning away from the shores of Lake Wylie and put them further inland. The Westport site allows for up to 1,700 units, including apartments. Instead, Olson plans to go strictly single-family. He even had to petition to the county to build fewer homes than a minimum number included in the earlier development plan.

“We’re sensitive to the concerns of the locals,” said Olson, himself a Lake Wylie resident. “We did not utilize, maximize, what the density of the development would allow. We’re interested in smart development.”

Love said she knows 842 homes still will have a significant impact on Lake Wylie. But she is pleased with steps the developer took to lessen the impact considerably.

“This development is coming whether we like it or not,” she said. “842 homes is a big neighborhood, and it started before I got on Council. My goal is to make it the best it can be.”

More than 95 acres of open space is well above the county requirement. There also will be more than a mile of walking trail, which could become part of the Carolina Thread Trail.

“Either way it’ll be public,” Olson said. “It’ll have a public parking lot and a picnic area.”

The project also will incorporate dark sky lighting, a concept which cuts down on the light sent beyond the development by streetlights.

“He is the first one to agree to that for all of his developments in Lake Wylie,” Love said. “It eliminates the glow. It’s just environmentally friendly.”

Love sees the new homes as part of two goals, one a county goal, the other a common concern among residents. Residents always say they want more restaurants, Love said, and “restaurants follow rooftops.” The county is always looking for more commercial tax base.

“Commercial growth is heading down 274 toward this neighborhood,” Love said. “It’s connecting existing Lake Wylie to this neighborhood.”

Community concerns are important to Olson, too.

“We want to do stuff we can be proud of,” he said.

Several new, large apartment projects have come to Lake Wylie since the initial planned development near Five Points. So when residents say in public settings they don’t want more, Olson understands.

“We feel there’s enough multifamily in Lake Wylie,” he said. “We’ve made major strides toward eliminating multifamily construction. We don’t need to put them down there just because we can.”

Love said the incoming residents will bring continued growth pressures, and she still has concerns with too many projects coming at once. She still wants to work on getting public infrastructure up to the point it can handle residential growth. That include efforts like a residential construction overlay, often advocated, but never voted into county code.

“We never got it right,” Love said. “I feel like I can work with residents and developers to get it right moving forward.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2017 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Is this ‘smart growth’ in Lake Wylie? Love says it is.."