Huntersville Land Development: Inside Fair Oaks

When you tour a new home, you see the finishes, the floor plan and the view. You don't see the grading, the soil tests, the road base or the months of town meetings that came before the first wall went up. That invisible work is where land development is won or lost.

On the latest episode of the Foster Rojan Premier Properties podcast, we sat down with Kathy Day. She took a wooded tract in Huntersville and turned it into Fair Oaks, a small new-construction community built with E.S. Johnson Builders. As Kathy put it, it's her first development and her only one, and she held nothing back about what it took.

Finding the land

Kathy kept driving past the property. One day she finally pulled in and walked it, and she knew it was special. She brought in E.S. Johnson Builders to walk it with her.

The land came with a head start. A previous owner had already zoned it as a farmhouse cluster, which leaves the grounds more natural instead of clearing everything. That meant keeping as many trees as possible, along with a creek running through the back.

Kathy says there aren't many tracts like this to choose from. She bought during COVID and had to move fast. Her safety net was simple: if the development didn't work out, she expected to break even or make a profit on the land alone.

What's under the dirt

Before committing, Kathy sat down with a grading contractor who clears land for national builders like D.R. Horton and David Weekley. His honest advice was that she could take a profit and walk away. Even with soil testing, he said, what you find underground during road grading can get expensive enough to sink a project.

Some of that showed up. Near the creek, the soil got wetter and harder to work. Kathy chose cement stabilization for the entire road, which the lower half especially needed. She says it was a real added cost but worth it, because it gives the road roughly ten extra years of life.

She credits much of the project's success to her grading company. They were honest, showed up on time and did what they projected.

The approval process

Kathy found the initial approval meetings fairly straightforward. Next came hiring an engineer, a grading company and every utility provider.

The hardest part, she says, was working with the Town of Huntersville after approval. In her experience, the requirements around dirt moving and clearing kept shifting. At times she wondered whether being a woman developer played a part. She ultimately hired an attorney to help push the project through. She believes another town or county might have been easier, and it's one reason Fair Oaks will be her only development.

The vision for Fair Oaks

The community takes its name from its centerpiece. About 50 years ago, someone planted five oaks in a row along the street. Today they're mature and striking, and four of them stand on Fair Oaks land.

The Greenway sidewalk runs just behind the property, and the creek winds through the wooded back acreage. Kathy hopes to add a nature trail through that natural area. She's holding off on a final decision until she can see whether it fits the finished look of the community.

Even the street name has a story. Kathy's nickname is Kate, but "Kate's Way" was already taken. Inspired by a beautiful grove at the back of the land, the road became Kate's Grove Way.