KANNAPOLIS — The worst dry spell this area has seen in half a century has forced city leaders to put a stop to yet one more thing that requires city water — growth.
City Council voted Monday to stop accepting preliminary subdivision plans or approving rezonings that would require extensions of the city’s drought-strained water-supply system.
The moratorium on development comes at the behest of state water officials and at a time when Kannapolis, like other cities in the Charlotte region, is seeing unprecedented growth.
Much of that growth, city leaders were hoping, would be industrial and commercial. But the council put all types of development on hold while city and state officials search for a solution to the nagging drought.
“We have a tremendous amount of growth on the table,” Mayor Ray Moss said.“But it’s not a matter of wanting to do it (enact the moratorium). It’s a matter of having to do it. Hopefully, it’s going to be a short-term thing.”
Officials with the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources monitor local lake levels along with the cities that draw water from them. They recently suggested that Kannapolis join Concord in not accepting any new subdivision plans.
The moratorium does not affect public schools and other public facilities, such as police, fire and emergency services stations, hospitals, public utilities, extensions for fire protection or subdivisions approved before Monday.
Mike Legg, the city’s planning director, said Kannapolis has already approved up to 1,500 residential units, and about 70 percent of those are under construction.
But even those subdivisions will have a tough time getting state approval for water, if they don’t have it already. That includes the city’s Kannapolis Gateway Business Park, the only business park in the city with plans now before the state.
The site for a planned speculative building in the business park, at the future intersection of N.C. 73 and Kannapolis Parkway, has ready access to water.
But the rest of the development requires supply-system extensions.
With any plans to extend the city’s system, the city must explain how the city can supply the water.
And right now, said Wilmer Melton, the city’s water resources director, the city doesn’t really have a good explanation.
Despite recent rains and conservation efforts that have increased the level at the city’s reservoir by 13 inches in the past couple of weeks, the lake level remains 30 inches below normal for this time of year.
The business park plans are “in the same situation as all the other plans before the state right now,” Melton said. “We’re on hold.”
Today's News