Mebane City Council Approves 82-Home Oakview Cove Subdivision on Gibson Road

An 82-lot subdivision called Oakview Cove cleared the Mebane City Council on a 4-1 vote Monday night, greenlighting construction of single-family homes on 26.44 acres along Gibson Road within the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction on the Alamance County side.

Smith Douglas Homes, which filed the rezoning application under the name SDH Raleigh, LLC, pitched the project as workforce housing aimed at teachers, healthcare workers, firefighters, and nurses earning between 80% and 120% of the area median income. According to figures from the developer's presentation, that range translates to roughly $70,560 to $105,840 annually. Tyler Will, representing Smith Douglas Homes, framed the company's purpose plainly: "Our main, primary goal is to serve the teachers, the firefighters, the policemen, the first responders, the nurses, by providing attainable home ownership at affordable prices without sacrificing quality." The developer projected potential price points below $425,000, citing $425,000 as the median home sales price in the area between August 2023 and August 2024.

The sole dissenting vote came from Councilman Jonathan White, who objected to the developer's decision to pay the city $37,503 in lieu of providing the 2.35 acres of public recreation space that Mebane's development ordinance requires. Mayor Pro Tem Tim Bradley and council members Katie Burkholder, Sean Ewing, and Montrena Hadley all voted in favor.

The council also amended Mebane's long-term development plan as part of the approval. The city's ordinance had previously designated the area for multifamily housing, so the vote required bringing the plan into alignment with the approved single-family use.

The five parcels, addressed 1025 through 1053 Gibson Road, are a mix of occupied and vacant land. Mebane City Planner Briana Perkins described the site at the Planning Board stage: "This property has single-family homes on two of the (five) properties, and then the rest (the other three parcels) are vacant," adding that surrounding uses "include single-family detached homes, town homes, warehouses and vacant property." The Mebane Planning Board had unanimously approved the rezoning request on February 9, according to reporting from News of Orange, before the conditional rezoning moved to the full council.

The homes in Oakview Cove will come in ranch-style and two-story designs. A developer representative told the council Monday that buyers would be able to "customize and design it to their forever home."

Oakview Cove will sit adjacent to the Copperstone community and joins a corridor north of the I-40/I-85 interchange that is rapidly absorbing new development, including a planned Buc-ee's and Target. The subdivision will have a single point of access; city officials confirmed no secondary entrance is planned. No construction start date has been announced.