Gastonia residents express concerns over potential housing development

Charlotte-based developer NewStyle Communities is proposing a new 94-home development in Gastonia off of South New Hope Road.

Residents of the Bethesda Oaks community, which borders the proposed development, are questioning whether the area can be responsibly developed.

Bethesda Oaks residents gathered at City Church last week for a community meeting with the team looking to create what will be called South New Hope Village.

Brock Fankhouser, the founder and CEO of NewStyle Communities, explained the plans for the community and fielded questions from the crowd.

Several residents expressed concerns over traffic and greenspace.

In addition to the proposed South New Hope Village, NewStyle Communities also began work in the area last year to develop 1776, a 55+ community with a focus on patriotism.

Another developer is currently working on a multi-family home project near that section of South New Hope as well.

Initial responses from residents of the Bethesda Oaks community included questions about where children of the new homes would attend school and how working-age adults would get to work in the morning with additional traffic coming from nearly 100 new homes.

According to Fankhauser, South New Hope Village will also be a 55+ community, which eliminates much of the worry over school and morning traffic because most in the community will be retired, he said.

Residents are still concerned about traffic coming through their neighborhood if there are two entrances to South New Hope Village.

Several residents suggested that the changes in unnecessary traffic could be mitigated by developers requesting one entrance to the village and a gated access reserved for emergency vehicles.

Greenspace and privacy is another concern for Bethesda Oaks residents who say they don’t want all of the trees between their community and the new development to be removed.

“We have a beautiful forest of trees back behind all of those homes, and we have some amazing wildlife that lives back there,” said one resident at the meeting. “What does that look like? Are you leaving the existing trees. Are you clearing the trees? What does that look like?”

According to Fankhauser, there will be a 25-foot buffer of undisturbed land between Bethesda Oaks and the new community.

NewStyle Communities has not yet begun the process of rezoning for the development.

The developer hopes to go before the planning and zoning commission in June, Fankhauser said.