News

County OKs 'pocket' subdivision on Greenville Highway

Henderson County commissioners OK'd a request to rezone 1.6 acres on Greenville Highway for a small five-home subdivision.

By Bill Moss, Published: July 19, 2023

After a developer committed to conditions they demanded, Henderson County commissioners on Wednesday authorized a "pocket" subdivision of five homes on Greenville Highway in the "no man's land" between Hendersonville and Flat Rock.

Endorsing neighbors' concerns about adding septic tanks to the low-lying, flood-prone land, commissioners won a concession from property owner Eric Oursler and his OurCo Construction Co. to tie into Hendersonville's sewer system. He also agreed to install buffers of trees along the property, which backs up to homes on Windham Way and Camelot Drive. The property contains a single-family home that Oursler plans to bulldoze to make the development.

Oursler plans to build five homes on 1.6 acres in a small cul-de-sac subdivision. In a neighborhood compatibility meeting on June 15, Oursler responded to a series of questions from a neighboring homeowner:

• The maximum size of the homes will be three bedrooms and 2½ baths, all facing the cul-de-sac, on quarter-acre lots. The cul-de-sac will be a private road.
• No traffic analysis was required.
• He expected to build the homes in a four-month timeframe.

Several homeowners during a public hearing spoke against the development and three spoke in favor of it. One, a real estate agent, cited the need for housing inventory in Henderson County's imbalanced market and what he described as Oursler's quality construction. One was a resident who had bought a home built by Oursler and another also cited the need for more homes.

Attorney Craig Justus, who represented Oursler, told commissioners that the rezoning request "checked all the boxes" of the county's land-use plan, which calls for higher density there.

"This is the property where you have said — more density," he said. "It is consistent and it is reasonable what we're asking for. ... The question of drainage and septic are things you heavily regulate," he said. "You have people assigned professionals to look at that. What's being forgotten in the mix from the neighborhood folks that just spoke is my client is looking to extend the public sewer, which actually will assist in potentially pulling people off septic."

Neighboring homeowners who implored commissioners to reject the rezoning cited stormwater runoff, traffic and the loss of trees.