Horton hears a 'NO' from City Council Tuesday night
Apr. 6—D.R. Horton Inc.'s long-delayed plans for a housing project on Colon Road, were rejected again by the Sanford City Council at Tuesday's meeting and led to heated remarks from two council members.
D.R. Horton representatives said that concerns mentioned by the city council at a November meeting had been addressed and that the "Express" product house was the type of housing that they would be built in the proposed development.
Councilman Charles Taylor questioned D.R. Horton representatives about the quality of the product, asking if this is their lowest, cheapest housing product, and why they plan on building this type of housing in this area.
The representative for the builder answered stating that it was exactly the lowest and cheapest house available, but that is always changing and there was no definitive answer on what the express housing package is and couldn't be defined.
"My problem tonight is, this is the corridor that is our gateway coming into our community," Taylor said. "This board has been very diligent the last two times you have come to council to express to you that we do not want a cheap and inexpensive product coming into our town, but yet, you have continued with the express line of product."
Taylor didn't stop there.
"This is not your high-end product. You have several different levels above that that would be much more desirable in our town, when entering our town in a car. I don't know how much more explicit we could have been in this process, to want to ask to have a better-quality home at the gateway to our community. It's the first thing you see when you enter Sanford, and I don't want the cheapest thing you have in your arsenal — but I do know that's the low-end line for D.R. Horton's products, and I think sometimes it's up to us to protect our investment in what we've done for the interior of Sanford, and to have a product that's worthy of what we want to see from coming in from Raleigh, North Carolina."
Councilwoman Linda Rhodes asked the Horton representatives for more clarification on why the builder wasn't planning on building higher quality homes.
The representative repeated what he initially told Taylor. However, the Express line was being removed.
Tempers flared and voices were raised as Taylor sparred with the home builder's representatives.
"Explain to me why you can't go higher than what you have now? .... Unless we ask for better, you're not going to give us better," Taylor said.
Councilman Jimmy Haire asked why the garages, built in front of homes, would use more space than the residences.
"At some point I don't want Sanford to get stuck as the president of the R6 homes," Haire said. "I'm just not comfortable with it, to be frank with you."
The company's representative said that the houses being built were based on salaries in the area.
Taylor disagreed, saying the reason was the profit margin.
He also compared the plans to recent housing development in the city.
"When I look down the street and there's 12 homes and they're Raleigh people, and the reason they chose here is because they can get one-and-a-half times the size of a house for the money they're spending. These homes are selling for $300,000.
"I know for a fact that there's a lot of people that, after Covid, can drive to Raleigh a few times a week, and work from home the other three days," Taylor said. "That has driven sales up, so I don't buy that an 'express' product needs to be in our corridor, when we've got two, three, four miles down the road we're selling homes that are a higher quality product than you're giving us on our corridor."
"At the end of the day we're just getting what's the most profitable for the builder — that which is driving the P&L."
"If we don't stand in the line — we're the last line of defense for the citizens right now — if we want to accept a cheaper product here ... Sanford's going to be known as a cheap place, then vote for it," Taylor said. "But I can't support it."
Council members unanimously rejected the plan.
