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Huntersville neighbors worry widening project will wipe out homes

By Blaine Tolison, wsoctv.com
By Blaine Tolison, wsoctv.com

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — Some neighbors are worried that the Highway 73 widening project will cross right over their property lines.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation released new maps on the project. The widening calls for four to six lanes that would run from NC 16 to Northcross Drive.

The orange and yellow lines on the map show “impact areas” and those lines overlap with homes, churches, and even a grocery store.

If the orange line actually represented where the new lanes would be, that means many homes in the Birkdale neighborhood would get wiped out.

Resident Mandy Drakeford said speculation over what those lines mean have already caused the sale of her neighbor’s home in the Birkdale community to fall through.

“There’s a lot of concern and fear,” Drakeford said.

But Huntersville Mayor John Aneralla said that concern and fear is over some confusion.

“The NCDOT has taken a magic marker line of the potential impact areas along the corridor,” Aneralla said.

[NC 73 Project Information and Public Input Meetings]

Aneralla lives in Birkdale and said the final designs of the road aren’t finished.

“Eventually that will become a much more fine line,” Aneralla said.

NCDOT officials confirmed that a design team is still working on the actual size of the road-widening. They also said the orange line is not the location of the actual road, but wouldn’t rule out some homes getting leveled.

“I hope that they will consider keeping the houses and yards intact in that community,” Drakeford said.

The final designs for Highway 73 won’t be completed for another few months. The NCDOT is still taking public input on the project, which ends March 15.

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