By Chatham Journal staff
Pittsboro, NC – Chatham Park’s developers told Pittsboro commissioners Monday that the massive master-planned community is preparing for another phase of expansion, with roughly 4,700 residential lots expected to move through platting over the next six years, a second grocery-anchored mixed-use center in development, major medical facilities envisioned on UNC Health-owned land and the first South Village neighborhoods advancing as roads, water and sewer lines extend across the project.
The September 14 annual report offered one of the broadest recent snapshots of Chatham Park, an 8,500-acre development planned around Pittsboro. Chuck Smith, Vice President, Planning and Development, Preston Development Company, said approximately 500,000 square feet of nonresidential space is already on the ground and about 1,100 jobs are associated with existing businesses and institutions. He said another 1.8 million square feet of nonresidential development is being actively pursued in various stages, producing a combined existing-and-pipeline figure of roughly 2.3 million square feet.
Those figures, like many in the presentation, came from the developer and were not independently audited during the meeting. Several projects remain conceptual, depend on future town approvals or lack firm construction dates. The presentation nevertheless showed how quickly the center of gravity in and around Pittsboro could shift as Chatham Park moves beyond its first neighborhoods and commercial nodes.
“Good things are happening, and sometimes it may not feel like it at a particular moment, but they are coming,” Smith said.
For town leaders and residents, the report also raised questions that will persist well beyond a single meeting: How rapidly can Pittsboro’s roads, schools, fire protection and other public services absorb the growth? Will new commercial property and jobs keep pace with housing? How much of the housing will be affordable to the people who work in the community? And how will the developer’s sustainability promises be measured as thousands of acres are transformed?
A development entering a new stage
Chatham Park has long been described in build-out terms: 8,500 acres, as many as 22,000 dwelling units and a population that could ultimately be many times Pittsboro’s historic size.
Smith said the development team expects about 4,700 lots to be platted over six years in the North and South villages. Most of the near-term activity remains in the north, where utilities and streets are further advanced. But South Village, a nearly 5,000-acre planning area east and south of downtown, is moving closer to construction as Chatham Park Way and regional utility projects progress.
The 4,700-lot number does not mean 4,700 houses will be completed or occupied within six years. Platting is one stage in a longer sequence that can include detailed engineering, agency review, infrastructure installation, final approvals, home construction and sales. Smith acknowledged that the schedule depends on action by the town.
“This is all based on getting approvals and different things from you,” he told commissioners. “You can’t have this happen at this pace without you being involved in that.”
A development pipeline signals future demand on government staff and infrastructure, but market conditions, interest rates, builder decisions and permitting can accelerate or slow delivery. Residents looking at the numbers should regard them as the developer’s working schedule, not a guarantee of 4,700 new occupied homes by a fixed date.
Chatham Park’s existing nonresidential footprint is concentrated largely in Northwood Landing, MOSAIC, UNC Health facilities, the Hampton Inn and grocery, retail and restaurant uses. Smith said those locations collectively account for approximately 1,100 jobs. He told commissioners the developer could provide a detailed breakdown.
The commercial figures matter because residential growth has dominated local debate over tax base and service costs. During the presentation, a town representative said Pittsboro’s property-tax base is approximately 68.3% residential and 30.3% commercial. Smith said Chatham Park itself was closer to a 70-30 residential-commercial split by tax value when he last reviewed the numbers.
Neither figure establishes by itself whether growth “pays for itself.” Different land uses produce different public costs, and fiscal effects depend on assessed value, tax rates, service levels, school enrollment, infrastructure financing and which government – town, county or another entity – bears each expense. But the figures show why Pittsboro officials continue to press for employment centers and commercial investment alongside housing.
A second grocery store and a North Village center
One of the clearest retail announcements involved a proposed mixed-use center near the Chatham Park YMCA. Smith said the development is expected to be anchored by Chatham Park’s next grocery store.
The developer is “very close” to feeling confident about a location, he said, but the store could still be approximately three years away because of planning, design, permitting and construction. That schedule also approaches the expiration of a noncompete agreement associated with Lowe’s Foods that prevents another grocery store from opening within the development for a period of time, Smith said.
The concept is significant for residents who now travel to existing commercial centers for groceries and daily needs. A well-designed mixed-use district could shorten some trips for nearby households. It could also generate additional traffic on Chatham Park Way and connecting streets, making the precise mix of uses, access points, pedestrian routes and construction sequence important subjects for future review.
Smith also presented a concept for what the development team calls North Village, a roughly 75-acre mixed-use center. He compared its scale with Fenton, the large development in Cary, and cited The Bowl at Ballantyne in Charlotte as a design inspiration for part of the district.
Smith said the development team has worked through eight to 10 concepts and is still revising the plan. Early phases could include multilevel buildings, and much of North Village’s density is expected to be concentrated there. The exact amount of residential, office, retail and hospitality space was not established in the presentation.
The proposal reinforces a central planning question for Pittsboro: whether higher-density development will be concentrated in walkable, mixed-use nodes or spread across a road network that requires most trips by car. Chatham Park’s plan includes greenways and multiuse paths, but the usefulness of those facilities will depend on whether they connect homes to schools, stores, workplaces and civic destinations safely and directly.
UNC Health site holds major promise, but no hospital commitment
The most closely watched exchange of the evening came when commissioner Foley asked Smith to expand on a reference to a hospital.
Smith immediately narrowed the claim.
“I didn’t say I’m building a hospital,” he said.
He said health systems are cautious about defining what a “hospital” will mean a decade from now and that the site is expected to develop in phases, beginning with medical uses that may be smaller than a full-service hospital. Smith referred to planning for approximately 750,000 square feet of medical use and said clearing and preliminary site preparation had occurred.
The publicly announced figure is slightly different. In November 2023, UNC Health said it had acquired a 43-acre parcel south of the U.S. 64 Bypass and along Chatham Park Way with capacity for up to 700,000 square feet of medical care facilities. UNC Health described the property as an expansion of its Chatham County presence, complementing Chatham Hospital in Siler City and existing services in Chatham Park. The announcement did not promise a hospital or provide a construction timetable.
A medical office building, ambulatory center, specialty clinic and inpatient hospital create different numbers and types of jobs, require different emergency and transportation systems and provide different levels of care. Until UNC Health releases a formal plan, acreage and square-foot capacity should not be treated as confirmation of a hospital.
Even without an inpatient facility, Smith argued, a substantial medical campus can attract doctors’ offices, hotels, retail businesses and other services. He called the UNC Health commitment one of Chatham Park’s most important economic-development opportunities, placing it alongside the Disney-branded Asteria residential community in importance to the larger project.
Schools and the timing of growth
Education planning featured prominently in the report. Smith cited the expansion of Thales Academy through 12th grade and said Chatham Park representatives have been meeting regularly with Chatham County Schools regarding public-school sites.
According to Smith, the school system is looking toward a 2029-30 opening for a North Village elementary school. The development team is completing surrounding infrastructure intended to allow site work and construction to proceed. The date was presented as a planning target, and the school district would control its own capital schedule, design, contracts and opening decision.
In South Village, Smith pointed to a potential elementary-school site near Moncure-Pittsboro Road. He said the school system had indicated it was not seeking sites within the first three South Village section plans and was analyzing the location shown during the presentation. He described the South Village elementary school as a funded project but said the final site determination was still underway.
The relationship between housing delivery and school capacity is one of the most consequential elements of Chatham Park’s expansion. Thousands of new homes can affect attendance boundaries, bus routes, operating budgets and the timing of new campuses. The development presentation did not provide an updated student-generation forecast for the 4,700-lot pipeline or a year-by-year comparison of projected enrollment and planned seats.
That information will be important as plats advance. A school site on a map does not itself fund teachers, buses, utilities or ongoing operations. Nor does a target opening year guarantee that a school will be ready before nearby neighborhoods are occupied. Town commissioners do not control the county school budget, but town land-use decisions can influence the pace and location of enrollment growth.
Affordable housing: progress and an incomplete picture
Smith said 214 affordable units have been registered and cited an apartment development under construction near Chatham Park Way and U.S. 64 Business containing 338 total units. He also identified another 84 affordable units that have approval and are seeking financing, potentially including tax credits, on Fire Tower Road.
He said Chatham Park has met the affordable-housing threshold required for its first 5,000 dwelling units and is attempting to stay ahead of its commitments.
The town’s affordable-housing framework is tied to Chatham Park’s long-term build-out of 22,000 units. That structure is more complicated than comparing a single affordable-unit count with total construction. It includes timing, income eligibility, tenure, bedroom mix, duration of affordability and alternative compliance mechanisms. The annual report did not present a full table showing units completed, under construction, financed, approved or merely registered, nor did it specify rents or purchase prices.
Those distinctions matter in a region where housing costs have risen faster than many household incomes. A unit that is approved but lacks financing does not yet house anyone. A project with affordable apartments also may include market-rate units, as the 338-unit figure in Smith’s presentation appears to indicate. Residents and commissioners will need a project-by-project accounting to assess who the program is serving and for how long.
The town’s adopted affordable-housing element provides the governing framework and build-out assumptions. Pittsboro’s Chatham Park affordable-housing materials should be read alongside future annual reports rather than relying only on a presentation summary.
South Village moves closer as roads and utilities advance
The most substantial physical expansion outlined Monday lies in South Village. Its development depends heavily on transportation and utility systems now under construction or approaching construction.
Smith said the first phase of Chatham Park Way from U.S. 64 Business to U.S. 15-501 was ahead of schedule and expected to open in approximately nine months, around June 2027. He said northern segments were expected in the first quarter of 2028, which would put the full corridor within the project into service in roughly a year and a half.
Those dates should be checked against the latest project schedule as work proceeds. The N.C. Department of Transportation’s public description of the South Chatham Park Way project calls for two travel lanes in each direction, a raised median and an 11.5-foot multiuse path on both sides. NCDOT project information provides a basis for tracking design and construction milestones.
Smith said the sewer connection toward Sanford was expected to be complete in less than a year and that construction of a larger water line was expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027. Smaller lines serving initial South Village development would be built with the parkway, he said.
The utility work reflects a major institutional change. Pittsboro’s water and sewer operations are now part of TriRiver Water, following the utility consolidation with Sanford. That means growth planning involves not only developers and town land-use officials but also a regional utility system responsible for capacity, treatment, rates and long-term capital needs.
Chatham Park has submitted three South Village sections on differing schedules, Smith said. The first includes the core of a golf-course community on approximately 1,400 acres, with about 1,400 dwelling units and 255,000 square feet of nonresidential space in a mixed-use area. Two additional sections cover approximately 110 acres and 236 acres, according to the presentation.
Smith said roughly 2,100 units are associated with two Webb communities, one north and one south of Chatham Park Way, with separate amenities. The presentation did not state when those homes would begin construction or how quickly the 2,100 units would be delivered.
South Village planning also identifies public-service sites. Smith discussed two future fire-station locations – one near the water-recovery center on U.S. 64 Business and another along Gum Springs Church Road on the east side of the golf-course community – based on a third-party fire study. A future water-tank site has been selected near Moncure-Pittsboro Road, he said.
The fiscal argument over homes and services
Smith also addressed whether residential property in Chatham Park produces enough tax value to cover government services. He referred to a preliminary estimate that a home valued at approximately $490,000 to $500,000 would generate enough revenue to cover its share of town services. He said Chatham Park’s average home sale price was approximately $547,000, about 10% above that threshold, and suggested assessed values could place the margin at 10% to 15%.
Pittsboro town manager, Jonathan Franklin, interrupted to clarify that Pittsboro had not raised its tax rate; rather, Chatham County’s revaluation had changed property values.
The exchange illustrates why the fiscal claim requires more documentation. Sale price and tax value are not interchangeable. A break-even calculation depends on the services included, allocation method, household characteristics, tax rates, other revenue and capital costs. It also can change as a town hires more employees, assumes infrastructure maintenance or faces inflation.
Smith’s numbers may be a useful starting point, but commissioners and the public would benefit from the underlying model: its date, author, assumptions, treatment of school costs and separation of town and county responsibilities. Without that information, the conclusion that homes are 10% to 15% above a service-cost threshold remains a developer assertion rather than a settled public finding.
Commercial development could improve the balance because businesses can generate property and sales-tax revenue without adding schoolchildren. But some commercial uses also require transportation improvements, fire capacity and other services. The fiscal impact will depend on what is built, not merely the total square footage announced.
Parks, paths and community space
Smith said Chatham Park has built about two miles of greenway and is ahead of a requirement to provide one mile for every 700 homes. The long-range plan, he clarified after a commissioner’s question, includes 30 miles of greenway – 10 miles in North Village and 20 miles in South Village – plus 32 miles of multiuse paths.
The initial slide apparently referenced 55 miles, prompting the clarification. The verbal total of 30 miles of greenway and 32 miles of multiuse path equals 62 miles. Future written reports should reconcile those figures and distinguish completed, funded, designed and conceptual segments.
The Chatham Park YMCA, which Smith said has more than 6,000 members, is intended to serve as a major shared recreation center. Across from it, the “great lawn” has begun hosting events and is planned as a community gathering space, including a community Christmas tree.
Smith framed the YMCA strategy as an equity decision: a large community amenity available beyond the members of a private neighborhood club. Chatham Park neighborhoods will still include private amenities, but he said centralizing some recreation at the YMCA can serve a wider population and help limit homeowners-association costs.
In the Asteria area, Smith said design is beginning on a portion of the Haw River greenway on Chatham Park property. The schedule he described called for design in 2027, construction in 2028 and completion by 2029, alongside early home development.
Climate plan presents commitments – and claims requiring scrutiny
Smith devoted a portion of the annual report to Chatham Park’s climate action plan, organized around climate, biodiversity and advocacy. He argued that the project’s scale allows it to use practices that smaller subdivisions may not be able to afford or coordinate.
Existing features include a 5-megawatt solar farm said to supply the equivalent of electricity for more than 750 homes and a 500,000-gallon-per-day water-recovery center that supports wastewater reuse. Independent descriptions of the solar facility identify it as a roughly 44-acre project built by Strata Solar. MOSAIC’s sustainability overview describes both projects.
Smith said Chatham Park homes must follow its ecoSelect energy standard. He displayed an average rating of 60 compared with a baseline home score of 100, explaining that a lower score represents lower expected energy use. Chatham Park’s own sustainability information says homes are solar-ready and built under the ecoSelect Plus program. Chatham Park’s sustainability page describes the developer’s standards, though performance claims still warrant independent verification.
Other practices Smith highlighted included crushing and reusing rock on site, shaded streets with planting strips, tree wells, grass swales, constructed wetlands, soil preservation incentives, native plants, warm-season grasses and pollinator landscaping. He said Chatham Park has a goal of protecting or restoring 30% of existing and degraded ecosystems and is developing a sustainability guide for builders and other developers working within the project.
Smith also discussed stream impacts in South Village and contrasted a project-wide federal permitting approach with impacts that could occur through smaller developments. The numbers in that portion of the oral presentation were difficult to discern. A defensible assessment will require the actual U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit, impact tables, mitigation plan and maps, not a rough comparison delivered from the podium.
Commissioner Foley encouraged the use of native grasses and wildflowers around the solar farm, citing research connecting such plantings with pollinator and species benefits. Smith said he could not promise full control over Strata Solar’s practices but believed related work was occurring.
Chatham Park can incorporate energy-efficient construction, water reuse, green infrastructure and conservation while also clearing land, adding roads and generating new vehicle trips. The relevant public question is not whether the development does “something” for sustainability. It is whether measurable outcomes – energy use, carbon emissions, stream condition, tree canopy, habitat, water consumption and travel behavior – improve against a transparent baseline and enforceable commitments.
What residents should watch next
The annual report was expansive, but it was not a final development program. Its most newsworthy elements are also the ones that require continued scrutiny.
- First, UNC Health must define its initial phase. The difference between medical offices and a hospital is too important to blur, and the current official commitment is capacity for up to 700,000 square feet of medical facilities, not a guaranteed 750,000-square-foot hospital.
- Second, Pittsboro and Chatham County should connect the 4,700-lot pipeline to public-service schedules. Residents need a common timeline showing housing, road openings, utility capacity, school seats, parks and staffed fire facilities.
- Third, Chatham Park’s affordable-housing report should separate completed and occupied units from those under construction, approved, registered or seeking financing. It also should show income targets, affordability periods and unit types.
- Fourth, the town should request documentation for the fiscal and environmental claims presented Monday. Models can inform policy only when their assumptions and methods are visible.
- Finally, each South Village section will deserve detailed review. The location of homes, businesses, schools, parks and emergency facilities will determine whether the result functions as a connected community or a collection of car-dependent subdivisions.
A transformation measured in decisions, not renderings
Chatham Park’s Sept. 14 report made clear that Pittsboro is approaching another consequential stage of growth. Roads and utility lines are opening land in South Village. Thousands of lots are in the six-year pipeline. A second grocery-anchored center and a dense North Village district are taking shape on paper. UNC Health controls a site capable of supporting a major medical campus. Schools, fire stations, parks and greenways are being positioned around the expansion.
But the report also showed the limits of an annual presentation. Concepts are not construction commitments. Land reservations are not operating public facilities. Registered affordable units are not necessarily occupied homes. Capacity for medical buildings is not confirmation of a hospital. Developer estimates of fiscal and climate benefits are not substitutes for published methodology and independent review.
Plans, plats, permits and funding agreements will ultimately reveal more than any rendering about how Chatham Park’s promises translate into daily life.
Associated links
- Chatham Park annual report presentation to Pittsboro commissioners — Sept. 14, 2026 — YouTube
- Chatham Park annual report presentation materials — Town of Pittsboro
- Pittsboro Board of Commissioners meeting agenda — Sept. 14, 2026 — Town of Pittsboro
- Chatham Park master-plan overview and governing documents — Town of Pittsboro
- Chatham Park official website — Chatham Park/Preston Development Company
- UNC Health will expand services in Chatham — UNC Health/Chatham Hospital
- Preston Development and UNC Health plan expanded health-care services in Chatham Park — Chatham Economic Development Corporation
- UNC Health buys 43 acres in Chatham County for $15.9 million — Business North Carolina
- South Chatham Park Way, NCDOT Project R-5963 — N.C. Department of Transportation
- Traffic forecast update for Chatham Park Way projects R-5930 and R-5963 — N.C. Department of Transportation
- Pittsboro approves Chatham Park South Village Small Area Plan — Chatham News & Record
- Design for Chatham Park’s South Village takes shape — Chapelboro/WCHL
- Chatham Park: Pittsboro’s new hub for community and innovation — The Local Reporter
- Chatham Park sustainability features — Chatham Park/Preston Development Company
- MOSAIC and Chatham Park sustainability overview — MOSAIC at Chatham Park
- New section of Chatham Park Way opens — MOSAIC at Chatham Park
- Disney releases new details about Asteria in Chatham Park — Axios Raleigh
- Chatham Park environmental concerns and project history — Haw River Assembly
- UNC Chatham Park Medical Office — UNC Medical Center
- Opening of the UNC Chatham Park Medical Office — UNC Health Newsroom