Metro Council votes to defend Gateway challenge

Council votes 10-1 to continue defending the Planning and Zoning denial as Gateway heads toward a Dec. 14 court date

11:03 p.m. Sept. 21, 2026

DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor

The Metro Council voted 10-1 Monday night to keep defending Moore County’s decision to deny preliminary approval for Gateway Development Corporation’s proposed 42-townhome development along Main Street.

The vote came during the first regular Council meeting since six new members took office Sept. 1 – and after members first considered waiting another month to make the call.

They did not.

Sunny Rae Moorehead moved to delay action until October, but Robert Bracewell spoke against the delay and the motion failed. Bradley Dye then moved for the county to defend the case, with John Oosting seconding.

Voting to defend were Arvis Bobo, Bracewell, Amy Cashion, Dye, Jayson Estfon, Dexter Golden, Brady Goodwin, Payton Keller, Moorehead, and Oosting.

Peggy Sue Blackburn cast the lone no vote.

Regina Adcock, Douglas Carson, Brandon Ross, and Shane Taylor were absent.

The vote directs County Attorney Bill Rieder to continue defending the June 2 Planning and Zoning Commission decision Gateway is asking Chancellor J.B. Cox to overturn.

And Monday night put two new numbers on the case: Dec. 14 and somewhere between $12,000 and $15,000.

Dec. 14 comes into view

Rieder told Council the case has been tentatively set for Dec. 14 before Cox. Cox offered several available dates last week, Rieder said.

Council members also tried Monday to bring at least some of the legal discussion that has happened behind closed doors into public view. Rieder was asked to summarize the advice he gave Council during its Aug. 31 attorney-client consultation, but he declined.

“I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment on pending litigation that's pending before Chancellor Cox,” Rieder said.

Rieder previously provided Council members with a confidential memorandum and discussed the case during the Aug. 31 attorney-client meeting. The six newly elected members participated in that briefing before their terms began Sept. 1.

No vote was taken during the closed attorney-client meeting. Any decision had to come later, in public, and Monday night was that night.

Waiting another month goes nowhere

Council first considered putting it off. A motion was made to bring the Gateway question back at the October meeting, and Rieder said there was not much he expected to need to do in the case between now and then.

But one Council member questioned what waiting would accomplish. With 11 members present, the member argued, the votes were already in the room. Unless something new surfaced before October, another month was unlikely to change the outcome.

The motion to delay failed on a voice vote, and Council turned to the choice laid out in its packet: Keep defending the action, or consent to Gateway receiving the relief it has asked the court to grant?

Dye moved to defend, and Oosting seconded.

Defense carries a $12,000-$15,000 estimate

Before the final vote, members worked through what exactly they were authorizing. Rieder pointed back to the two choices before Council: defend the action or consent to Gateway being granted the relief it requested.

Another question went straight to the bottom line: What is the worst possible outcome if Moore County keeps defending the case? “For them to be granted the preliminary site approval,” Rieder said.

Gateway is not seeking monetary damages in this proceeding. Its writ of certiorari asks Chancery Court to review the Planning and Zoning Commission’s decision. Gateway has asked Cox to reverse the denial and order the preliminary plan approved or send the matter back for another review.

Asked what he expects the county to spend continuing the defense, Rieder estimated somewhere between $12,000 and $15,000, though he qualified the estimate.

“I’m guessing, because I don’t know what all is going to have to be done,” Rieder said.

The case is already in court

Council also asked what happens when the case reaches Cox in December. Would that hearing simply determine whether the dispute goes to court? “It’s in court,” Rieder said.

The Dec. 14 hearing would decide the issue before Cox, subject to any later appeal.

Rieder also reminded Council that Metro Council itself does not approve or deny preliminary site plans. Planning and Zoning does, and Gateway’s court challenge asks Cox to review what happened when that commission denied the plan June 2.

BZA answers the townhouse question

Monday night’s vote is the latest turn in a dispute that has already moved through Planning and Zoning, the Board of Zoning Appeals, and now Chancery Court.

Planning and Zoning voted 3-1, with one abstention, on June 2 to deny Gateway’s preliminary plan for 42 attached homes on about 5.13 acres along Main Street. Commissioners raised questions about density, whether the proposed units qualified as townhouses, traffic, access, water service, and public safety.

Gateway then took two questions to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

On July 21, the BZA voted 3-1 that Gateway’s proposed units meet Moore County’s definition of a townhouse. Blackburn, Patrick Maynard, and Chairman Keith Moses voted yes. Houston Lindsey voted no.

The second question split the board. Gateway asked the BZA to overturn Planning and Zoning’s denial of the preliminary site plan. That vote ended 2-2, with Blackburn and Moses voting to grant the appeal and Lindsey and Maynard voting against it. Josh Cook was absent.

With no majority either way, that portion of the appeal was tabled. Gateway left the meeting with a ruling that its buildings qualify as townhouses — but without approval to move all 42 units forward.

The company filed its writ petition July 30. Cox granted the writ, allowing the court to review the local record. That order did not approve the development or reverse Planning and Zoning.

Which zoning rules apply?

By the time the case reached Chancery Court, one question had already been answered. Moore County admits Gateway proposes 42 townhomes on a single, undivided R-1 parcel. It also acknowledges the BZA accepted Gateway’s interpretation of the county’s townhouse definition.

What remains unsettled is how much ground those townhouses have to sit on.

Gateway points to the enrolled zoning ordinance and the zoning manual originally provided by the county. Under those documents, Moore County admits the 5.13-acre property contains enough land for 42 units.

The county says those documents do not reflect what Metro Council actually approved in 2025. Moore County contends Council intended to double the square-footage requirements for multifamily development and establish a 25-unit cap, but that language was left out of the signed and enrolled ordinance because of a clerical error.

Under the doubled square-footage requirements the county says should apply, Gateway would be limited to 21 units. Gateway argues the county cannot enforce restrictions that do not appear in its enrolled ordinance.

That discrepancy was already out in the open by the July BZA hearing.

Gateway attorney Madison Haynes presented the signed-and-sealed ordinances kept by the county clerk, the zoning book Gateway purchased, and information previously supplied by Rieder. Those documents contained the language Gateway says it relied on when designing the project.

Rieder acknowledged during that hearing that the language he provided Gateway matched the zoning book. He said the discrepancy resulted from a clerical error and argued that Council minutes and legislative history show what the governing body intended to approve.

The county and Gateway still disagree on other points, including a half-acre building-site provision and whether Planning and Zoning had enough evidence to deny the project over traffic and access concerns. Those questions now sit with Cox.

Council chooses the courtroom

That left Monday night’s Council with a fairly simple choice, even if the case behind it is anything but simple: Keep defending Planning and Zoning’s denial, or stop defending it and consent to the relief Gateway is asking Cox to grant.

Ten members voted to keep defending the case. Blackburn voted no.

Barring another turn, the arguments that have bounced through Moore County meeting rooms since June are now pointed toward a Dec. 14 date in Chancellor Cox’s courtroom.