The Charlotte City Council convened on February 16, 2026, at 9:15 AM for a zoning meeting chaired by Councilmember Ed Briggs. The meeting covered deferrals, approvals of consent items, decisions on rezonings with post-committee changes, and public hearings on several petitions, including a major UDO text amendment and a controversial rail freight terminal proposal.
This February 16th zoning meeting of the Charlotte City Council. My name is Ed Briggs. I am the District 7 Council Member and also the Chair of the Transportation Planning and Development Committee. And in that capacity, I'm sitting here tonight. We will begin with introductions around the day, is starting with Mr. Masuera Riaz. Thank you, Councilmember Driggs. JD Masuera Arias, probably representing the East Side, District 5. Good evening, everyone. Happy Black History. Malcolm Graham, District 2. Kimberly Owens, representing District 6. Good evening, everyone. James Mitchell may have pro town. Allison Craig, Deputy City Manager. Dante Anderson, District One. Joy Mayo, District Three. Terry Hagler Gray, Senior Assistant City Attorney. Billy Tons, Deputy City Clerk. Thank you. We will begin our meeting with an invocation. Expressions and inspiration followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. The invocation by the Council Member is intended to solemnize our proceedings. We celebrate the religious diversity of our community, including those without a religious faith. Tonight, Councilmember Graham will give our invocation. Well, Heavenly Father, as we come to you on this evening, we ask for your grace over our city. We ask for every neighborhood, every community to feel your touching hand. We ask that you bless over this council and give us the wisdom and the courage to make wise decisions on behalf of this great community. Amen. Councilmember Otomira, would you like to introduce yourself? Sure. Good evening, Dimple Ashmer, Councilmember at large. So it's a zoning meeting tonight. It begins with applications that are submitted to the planning staff for review. The planning staff basically conducts a thorough review of these petitions from very different standpoints and then ultimately makes a recommendation to the council. Decisions and hearings. Decisions on cases for which a public hearing was previously held will be made tonight, and there will be no further comment about those. gets uh and those in favor get three minutes in total to present the case unless their opponents signed up to speak or if staff is in opposition in which case the petitioner gets ten minutes opponents get a total of ten minutes combined and petitioner then gets a two-minute rebullet rebuttal after the opponents speak if no one is opposed to signed up to speak staff provides a short presentation the public hearing is closed and the next public hearing is opened the petition goes to zoning committee of the planning commission for review and recommendation and at this point I'd like to ask the zoning committee chair to introduce himself and his members thank you very much councilmember Driggs my name is Douglas A Walton I am the chairman of the zoning committee of the planning commission please allow me to introduce my fellow commission or commission committee members uh they include Melissa Gaston Aaron Shaw Teresa McDonald Robin Stewart Carolyn Millen and Michael Caprioli the zoning committee will meet on Tuesday March 3rd at 530 p.m at that meeting the zoning committee will meet to discuss and make recommendations on the petitions that have a public hearing here tonight. The public is welcome to that meeting but please note that meeting is not a continuation of the public hearing that is being held tonight. Prior to the meeting you are welcome to contact us to provide your input you can uh contact you can find contact information and information about each petition on the city's website at Charlotteplanning.org and that is it back to you uh councilmember Driggs thank you Mr. Chair uh at this point we need to consider deferrals and withdrawals so what can happen is we have a schedule of zoning hearings or decisions and then at some time before our meeting tonight uh they are withdrawn or deferred so now we're going to hear from Ms. Kramer which ones uh those are yes we have several deferrals I'll start with decisions item number 13 petition 2025-021 by Harold Jordan deferring decision to March 23rd item number 14 petition 2025-039 by Christopher Martin deferring decision to march 23rd item number 15 petition 2025-091 by embarked development companies deferring decision to march 23rd item number 17 petition 2025-030 by try on advisors deferring decision to march 23rd item number 20 petition 2025-094 by a Topco properties deferring decision to March 23rd and item number 21 petition 225-126 by Cross and South East deferring decision to March 23rd and we have one public hearing deferring i that is item number 22 by uh Northwood Raven 2025 063 deferring their public hearing to March 23rd so council do I have a motion to defer these agenda items so move second any discussion hearing none all in favor that's unanimous thank you uh the next thing we'll look at is consent agenda items so uh on our uh agenda are items three through twelve that may be considered in one motion except for items that are polled by a council member please note that these petitions meet the following criteria for one they had no public opposition at the public at the hearing two the staff recommends approval three the zoning committee recommends approval and four there were no changes after the zoning committee's recommendation so now I ask are there any consent agenda items council would like to pull for question or comment or a separate vote seeing none we will proceed that's great good uh so then may I have a motion to approve the following petitions and adopt the zoning committee statement of consistency for each of these petitions as they appear in our agendas as the council's own and I will read them item number three petition 202504 by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital Authority number four petition 2025 078 by Image Customs Homes LLC Item number five petition 2025 096 by Justin Perry Item number six petition 2025 102 by Olympia and Wright Homes Item number seven petition 2025 11 by QuickTrip Corporation item number eight petition 2025 112 by Alexander Myers Family LLC Item number nine petition 2025 113 by C Lion LLC Item number 10 2025 115 by Abacus Capital Item 11 petition 2025 116 by Piedmont Land Development Inc. And item 12 petition 2025 119 by Hines so did we have so move second all right we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor that carries so at this point we can proceed to our decisions 16 right and I've got those yeah all right so uh consent to the back of consent we go 13 deferred 14 deferred 15 deferred so the first item uh on our agenda for our decision tonight is one uh I I will read the description it's one in which was in respect of which there were changes after the zoning committee so we'll have to vote on that All right. So the back of consent. We go. 13 deferred, 14 deferred. 15 deferred. So the first item uh on our agenda for our decision tonight is one uh I I will read the description. It's one in which was in respect of which there were changes after the zoning committee, so we'll have to vote on that.