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A nine-month fight to stop nearly 600 homes and townhomes planned for a forest filled with wetlands and streams in Chatham County heads to the Planning Board for a recommendation Tuesday.
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The 365-acre Fearrington Preserve site is located south of Briar Chapel and west of U.S. 15-501 and Fearrington Village. It includes an 18,000-square-foot commercial building, green spaces and trails.
Texas-based developer Fearrington Property Development LLC is also planning to donate 8.5 acres for up to 72 additional, affordable townhomes, instead of building the required affordable housing. Construction would be left to the county or a nonprofit housing provider.
The proposed “compact community” zoning allows the developer to build more densely in return for meeting most daily needs within walking distance and preserving rural land and character.
The Fearrington Preserve plan creates five dense subdivisions with separate entrances and divided from each other by roads and streams. Pokeberry Creek, a major Haw River tributary, cuts a long divide through its heart.
It preserves roughly 183 acres, largely along Pokeberry Creek.
The Chatham County Board of Commissioners reviewed a larger version of the project at three contentious public hearings this year before sending it to the Planning Board. Zoning administrator Angela Plummer said staff have struggled to address concerns about the plan, including whether it meets the requested compact community zoning.
“To us, this is not a compact community. It is not offering what the intent of the Compact community ordinance envisioned when it was done for Briar Chapel, and that is where we stand,” Plummer said at an April hearing, to applause from the project’s critics.
On Tuesday, the Planning Board will vote to either recommend that the commissioners approve or deny the project. It will then return to the commissioners for a public hearing.
The compact community ordinance requires the developer to provide at least 5% of the housing at an affordable price or make a payment to the county. The developer instead offered to donate the 8.5 acres for the county and a nonprofit partner to build the affordable townhomes.
The designated land — north and south of Andrews Store Road near the Briar Chapel park — has a few issues, including a 100-year floodplain across the northwestern corner. Future residents north of Andrews Store Road would be isolated from the rest of the community.
There’s also a former family farm with a hog lagoon, but it is dried up, overgrown and hasn’t been used in several years, according to an environmental study. The study recommended against using well water and groundwater because of the previous farm use, county staff said.
The location of the floodplain and how that will affect affordable housing construction is a bigger consideration, they said. TriRiver Water would provide public water for residents.
Jeremy Rose, an organizer with the grassroots advocacy group Smart Chatham, said that raises questions about whether a future wastewater system with spray fields near the wetlands could expand the area of potential contamination and what it will cost the county to clean it up.
Smart Chatham learned about the environmental study after requesting records related to a nondisclosure agreement between the county and the developer that covered the affordable housing negotiations. The developer wanted the agreement in case the county sought private information, county staff said. The NDA has since been terminated.
Chatham County housing officer Jamie Andrews said the townhomes could sell for roughly $175,000 in a part of the county where homes sell for $600,000 to $700,000. There is no information yet about the construction cost or timing.
But Tiffany Stuflick, Chatham Habitat’s vice president of development, told the Planning Board that the townhomes are needed to serve “single parents, teachers, first responders, young families, and persons trying to age in place here in Chatham County.”
“This isn’t a vague promise. It’s concrete action on goals that the county has already set for itself,” Stuflick said. “Affordable housing is integrated and woven into the community. These units share the same trails and recreational space as the rest of the development, and they’re walkable to Margaret Pollard, Chatham Grove, Woods Charter, and the county park.”
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An online petition earlier this year collected 1,480 signatures opposed to the Fearrington Preserve project, and residents formed Smart Chatham to find more information, analyze the potential pitfalls, and rally opponents to attend county meetings.
Neighbors share county planners’ questions about whether the project is a compact community, because the developer is seeking several waivers, including the ability to build less or no commercial space, no park-and-ride transit lot, and smaller landscaping buffers than required.
The biggest concern is the potential for environmental damage and more flooding from stormwater runoff into Pokeberry Creek and the Haw River.
The site includes about 304 acres of prime farmland or Farmland of Statewide Importance, according to project documents. Roughly 262 acres would be preserved or managed, mostly in areas that can’t be developed because of slopes, streams and state Natural Heritage forests.
But construction could affect 31 estimated wetlands and over 15 streams, putting some homes beside the creek’s 100-year floodplain, which has seen significant impacts since Briar Chapel was built. Last year, Tropical Storm Chantal swelled Pokeberry Creek, flooding homes and washing out nearby Morris Road.
John Alderman, an aquatic biologist for 45 years and Briar Chapel resident, shared photos at a Sept. 1 meeting of damage to Pokeberry Creek that resulted in wider, unstable creek beds, comparing them natural creeks in undeveloped areas of western Chatham County.
The county’s waterways belong to everyone, but are “being usurped by developers’ by-rights claims” to build subdivisions,” he said, calling for a moratorium on development while drafting better stormwater management rules.
“Whatever stormwater management that has been occurring here is absolutely not working. We need an immediate pause on all development until we better manage stormwater in our county. Otherwise, all our streams will soon look like Pokeberry Creek, blown up, blown out, in highly degraded urban streams,” Anderson said.
The developer is working with a consultant on a plan that would restore Pokeberry Creek across 30 acres and add about 60 acres for flood storage and habitat, slowing down the rush of water.
The Briar Chapel Community Association recently announced it would not participate in the creek restoration project, potentially reducing its effectiveness downstream. Briar Chapel has also opposed the lack of recreational facilities at Fearrington Preserve, raising concerns that it will strain their community physically and financially.
Neighbors also have big concerns about traffic and public safety, despite N.C. Department of Transportation plans showing future improvements at Andrews Store Road and U.S. 15-501. Andrews Store Road is winding with speeding cars, and wetlands limit future expansion. When parents pick up students from school, the line of traffic stretches for over a mile, neighbors said.
A traffic study found Fearrington Preserve could add 6,398 daily trips, with 200 to 400 trips at peak commuting hours.
That makes pedestrian safety another concern, neighbors said, because there are no sidewalks to commercial centers at Briar Chapel and Fearrington Village. Rose said planned trails to those areas would end in a field approved over 20 years ago for a shopping center that wasn’t built.
The traffic study recommends turn lanes at the intersection of Andrews Store and Parker Herndon roads, and turn lanes at the driveways intersecting those roads. The developer also could consider a traffic signal in the future.
This story was originally published October 5, 2026 at 5:24 AM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Chatham County resident John Alderman.
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