For example, residents in Hickory, NC, 50 miles north of Downtown Charlotte, sued to prevent a Wal-Mart store from opening. East Charlotte residents have legally fought off a shopping center. And in Davidson, NC, a Charlotte suburb, developers are preparing to go to court over the town's recent efforts to regulate the use of land.
Fanning the flames of battle even more is a shortage of open land as the Charlotte region continues to be the focus of ongoing development in all its sectors. In a published report, David Owens, a land-use law expert at the University of North Carolina's Institute of Government, says today's big development companies have more money invested and are willing to fight harder.
The big players consider going to court a necessary part of doing business but lesser operators are not as visible as they once were and don't fight as frequently as they used to over land issues, Owens says.
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