Update, Sept. 22, 2026: This article was updated after Charlotte City Council’s Sept. 21 vote to reinstate support for the I-77 South toll lanes project. CRTPO’s final vote is scheduled for Sept. 23.
CHARLOTTE — Charlotte City Council voted 7-4 on Monday, Sept. 21, to reverse its May position and reinstate the city’s support for the I-77 South toll lanes project, putting the proposal back in motion ahead of the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization’s final vote Wednesday.
The vote reversed the council’s 6-5 decision in May that had withdrawn support. Voting to move the project forward were Dimple Ajmera, James Mitchell, Dante Anderson, Malcolm Graham, Joi Mayo, Kimberly Owens and Ed Driggs. Voting against were Reneé Perkins Johnson, JD Mazuera Arias, LaWana Mayfield and Victoria Watlington.
The reversal came under pressure from a state budget provision requiring communities that opposed the project to reimburse NCDOT if the project did not move forward. WCCB reported the threatened penalty to Charlotte as roughly $64 million. Spectrum News 1 reported the City of Charlotte estimated it would have had to repay NCDOT around $60 million. The law exempts any local government that reinstates support on or before Oct. 5.
CRTPO is scheduled to cast its final vote Wednesday, Sept. 23. WCCB reported Charlotte’s decision will count for 42 percent of that vote. Earlier reporting has described the city’s weighted share differently, including as 31 weighted votes out of 74 total votes. Those descriptions have not been presented consistently across reporting, and this article does not attempt to reconcile them.
WCCB reported the council chamber was packed, the room grew unruly after the vote, the mayor threatened to clear the chamber and multiple people were escorted out by security. In public comment, a member of the public who spoke at the meeting said, as quoted by WCCB: “Here’s what I can’t wrap my brain around. Why are we being asked to make a $4 billion multi-decade decision when we still don’t have answers about money, legal justifications, the alternatives and the procurement process? Don’t let the pressure change the question. Don’t let the price tag change the facts and don’t let concerns about what Raleigh might do, whether that’s the airport, our transportation funding or our relationship with the state, become the reason you’ve stopped asking the questions that still need answers. Pressure is not an answer. You were elected to represent Charlotte.”
Monday’s vote resolved the immediate question of whether Charlotte would restore support before the state’s deadline. It did not resolve the accountability questions underneath it: what West Charlotte would receive in return, what legal and financial terms remain unsettled, and whether the most visible community benefits are enforceable.
By The Metro Record Staff
The state’s claim is precise. Charlotte’s share is not.
Under Session Law 2026-41, enacted July 7, local governments that do not restore support for the project by Oct. 5 may be required to reimburse preliminary N.C. Department of Transportation costs.
Charlotte City Attorney Andrea Leslie-Fite told council Monday that the state’s claim against Charlotte is $69,577,547.67. The figure represents preliminary NCDOT project costs dating to 2018.
Charlotte does not accept that starting date. The city argues that the reimbursement period should begin in 2024, when CRTPO adopted the resolution supporting the public-private partnership. The city “continues and will continue to explore all available legal remedies,” Leslie-Fite said.
The amount Charlotte would ultimately owe is unsettled. Leslie-Fite said the obligation would be apportioned according to weighted votes, with Charlotte holding 31 percent of CRTPO’s 74 votes.
Chief Financial Officer Matt Hassett put Charlotte’s share between $59 million and $69 million. City staff did not explain how a 31 percent share produces a $59 million floor, and no council member pressed the point during the meeting.
That gap is central to the council’s decision. The city is being asked to reverse course before the liability has been fully established, while the financial consequences of both choices remain difficult to measure.
The coalition’s case centers on leverage, spending priorities and process
Organized opposition to the project has been led by a coalition that includes Action NC, the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Sustain Charlotte, the McCrorey Heights Neighborhood Association and the Revolution Park Drive neighborhood association.
As advocacy, not as an established finding, the coalition argues that council’s stated inability to absorb the penalty sits uneasily with the city’s record of approving major public commitments for private and institutional projects. The examples the coalition cites are specific: the city’s capped $650 million commitment toward Bank of America Stadium renovations, funded from hospitality and tourism tax revenues; $275 million approved for Spectrum Center renovations and a Hornets practice facility, also from hospitality and tourism taxes; and $38.25 million in city subsidies approved in 2020 for the Eastland Mall redevelopment.
That comparison does not erase the legal and fiscal differences. The stadium and arena commitments come from dedicated hospitality and tourism tax revenues rather than the general fund. The I-77 obligation, as the city attorney described it, is a reimbursement claim under state law. The coalition’s point is that the city’s “we can’t afford it” framing deserves scrutiny. It is not the same as establishing that Charlotte could have afforded to refuse.
The coalition’s central procedural complaint is narrower and more concrete: the independent alternatives analysis council requested in May was never procured, and council instead received an existing-conditions analysis.
The Sustain Charlotte records review raises questions, not findings
Sustain Charlotte published a public records review on Sept. 20, 2026, examining NCDOT’s relationship with HNTB, the consulting firm serving as Program Manager/Commercial Advisor for the I-77 South project. Sustain Charlotte and its executive director, Shannon Binns, state clearly that they have not concluded that any person or organization violated a law, ethics rule or policy. The review is framed as a records-and-questions inquiry, not a finding of wrongdoing.
According to Sustain Charlotte’s review, at least four former senior NCDOT officials later joined HNTB: former Chief Operating Officer Bobby Lewis, who joined in 2020; former Chief Engineer Ronnie Keeter, who retired May 31, 2022 after nearly 30 years; former Western Deputy Chief Engineer Brian Burch, who retired in spring 2022 after a 29-year career; and former Chief Operating Officer Chris Peoples, who retired June 1, 2026 and whose hire by HNTB was announced July 22, 2026.
Sustain Charlotte reports that HNTB’s qualifications materials state Lewis has led NCDOT’s statewide comparative analysis of publicly and privately operated toll projects since January 2022, identifying I-77 South among the projects and describing Lewis as managing the financial, technical and legal advisers. Sustain Charlotte also cites NCDOT’s Sept. 2, 2025 I-77 South Industry Forum attendee list, which shows Lewis, Keeter and Burch representing HNTB.
The records review points to safeguards in both state law and agency policy. Sustain Charlotte cites N.C.G.S. § 14-234, which addresses receiving a benefit, expressly including a promise of future employment, in exchange for influencing a public contract award. The group also cites NCDOT’s Ethics Policy, which includes a “Restriction on Future Employment” barring former officers and employees from accepting employment with a business entity in connection with a specific contract if they participated in drafting it, defining its scope, selecting the entity, negotiating costs or fees, or administering it, unless an exception is approved. Accepting later employment, by itself, does not establish a violation.
On spending, Sustain Charlotte reports that NCDOT’s accounting attributes $6.98 million to HNTB, or about 10 percent of the $69.6 million NCDOT says has been spent on I-77 South to date. Sustain Charlotte separately notes HNTB holds broader statewide and Turnpike Authority contracts whose authorized capacity has grown: a Strategic General Services contract to $19 million, its successor to $30 million, and a North Carolina Turnpike Authority contract to approximately $37 million. Those are contract ceilings or authorizations, not amounts shown to have been paid, and they cover work beyond I-77 South.
Sustain Charlotte further reports it was advised that program-management compensation for a project of this type could be 5 to 8 percent of project cost. Sustain Charlotte states it has not independently verified that percentage and is not presenting it as HNTB’s actual or anticipated fee. Using NCDOT’s current STIP figure of approximately $4.313 billion in year-of-expenditure dollars, that range would illustrate a scale of roughly $216 million to $345 million. Using HNTB’s own description of the project as approximately $5 billion, the same percentage would illustrate roughly $250 million to $400 million. Sustain Charlotte presents those figures only as scale illustrations, not as an estimate of HNTB’s contract value.
The review also describes Charlotte Regional Business Alliance relationships. Sustain Charlotte notes CRBA’s 2023 annual report identified both HNTB and Cintra US as Visionary Investors, a level requiring a $50,000 annual investment that year. Sustain Charlotte also reports that HNTB Vice President Greg Boulanger and then-Cintra US President Alberto Gonzalez were on CRBA’s Board of Trustees, and that those leadership ties have continued. Sustain Charlotte says HNTB contributed $100,000 to the Coalition for a Better 2050, the campaign supporting Mecklenburg County’s transportation sales tax referendum, while noting that campaign was not related to I-77 South. Cintra is part of 77SouthLink, one of four teams NCDOT shortlisted in February 2026 for the I-77 South concession.
CRBA is a 501(c)(6) business organization that has advocated for the project and has every right to do so. Sustain Charlotte’s point, as Binns frames it, is about disclosure rather than illegality. In Binns’ words, the relationships “do not prove improper conduct,” but elected officials and the public should know them.
Binns also summarized the review’s central demand this way: “We are not asking anyone to assume these safeguards were violated. We are asking NCDOT to provide the records necessary to show whether they were followed.”
Sustain Charlotte says it is seeking HNTB task orders and invoices tied to I-77 South, employee time records and accounting codes, records showing whether project-related work was billed through statewide or Turnpike Authority master contracts, and any exception, waiver or ethics determination NCDOT issued regarding the former officials.
The repayment would compete with housing and public facilities
The city attorney’s office advised that PAVE Act money is use-restricted and likely cannot cover the reimbursement.
Hassett called the Municipal Debt Service Fund the “cleanest and most defensible path.” The fund held approximately $171 million at the close of fiscal 2025, including about $161 million in cash or cash equivalents. But only an estimated $55 million to $56 million is available for appropriation.
The rest is already programmed for future affordable housing and public facilities bond referendums.
Hassett outlined three ways to replenish the fund:
- A permanent property tax increase of roughly one-tenth of a cent beginning with the fiscal 2028 budget, producing about $2.35 million annually.
- Moving approximately $2.35 million each year from the general fund or pay-as-you-go revenue.
- Reducing the size of future bond programs.
Under the third option, the affordable housing bond could fall from $100 million every other year to about $92 million. Public facilities funding could decline from roughly $45 million annually to about $41 million.
Hassett also warned that a significant drawdown would require conversations with rating agencies and reduce the city’s ability to respond to an emergency. He cited the SouthPark fire, when Charlotte used debt service fund balance to purchase fire trucks immediately.
If Charlotte challenges the law but outside auditors determine payment is more likely than not, the expense could be recorded before the fiscal year closes.
“So it would be the same as us having written sort of the check out the door,” Hassett said.
Council member LaWana Mayfield connected the fund’s potential use to the city’s existing housing shortage. She said Charlotte’s homeownership line has fallen to $364,000 in total and that the account used for down-payment assistance is at zero.
The next proposed source is a $125 million housing bond on the November ballot, which voters have not yet approved.
“We don’t have enough in the budget right now to buy a single home in the city of Charlotte, much less to help with down payment assistance,” Mayfield said.
For Black and minority residents facing rising housing costs in neighborhoods near the corridor, the question is not only whether Charlotte can absorb a reimbursement. It is whether a payment to the state would reduce the city’s ability to preserve housing access and neighborhood stability.
West Charlotte was promised up to $300 million. Nothing binds the state to deliver it.
Gov. Josh Stein’s transportation department has offered up to $300 million in community benefits for West Charlotte neighborhoods affected by the project.
The offer includes a possible cap over part of I-77, funding for two nonprofit community grocery stores and the proposed replacement of 17 bridges. The corridor contains 22 bridges and overpasses, and eight of the project’s 11 miles run through District 3, represented by Council member Joi Mayo.
Mayo urged council members to weigh the benefits and the bridge replacements. She described watching a man in a motorized wheelchair cross a bridge over the interstate to reach South Tryon.
The proposed improvements address long-standing infrastructure conditions in communities that are predominantly Black and have experienced the effects of highway construction, limited retail access and uneven public investment.
But the $300 million figure is not a contract.
When Council member Reneé Johnson asked what currently obligates NCDOT to provide the benefits, Leslie-Fite answered: “At this time, there is no agreement or requirement by NCDOT.”
The request for proposals would be the binding document, with an agreement to follow. No developer has been selected. The procurement process remains unfinished.
That leaves the city having restored support for a project partly on the strength of benefits that cannot yet be enforced.
The independent alternatives analysis council requested in May was never procured. Deputy City Manager Rebecca Hefner said there was not enough time to complete a credible analysis before the state deadline. Council instead received an existing-conditions analysis.
Graham said he would want the state’s benefits in writing. He also said a lawsuit would damage the city’s relationship with state government.
“We’re better together, as a city and a state, and we have to work it out,” Graham said. “A lawsuit poisons that relationship for sure, and even if we win, we lose. The better path for fighting the state is at the ballot box.”
Mayor Pro Tem James Mitchell said his support depends on benefits language being written into the council request. He acknowledged that the current request does not include that language.
Council member Victoria Watlington summarized the leverage problem: “We can talk all day long about how we want them to be binding, what we hope, what we expect. We don’t have any leverage that we’re willing to use.”
Charlotte cannot pay other towns’ shares
Matthews Mayor John Higdon has asked Charlotte to cover Matthews’ fine if the town stays with Charlotte on a no vote.
The city attorney said Charlotte cannot do that. North Carolina law requires every expenditure of city funds to serve a public purpose, with the primary benefit flowing to the city’s own residents.
Graham rejected the request.
“I’m not willing to pay their legal fees or any fines associated with their reversal,” he said. “That is not Charlotte’s responsibility. As the chairman of the budget committee, I can tell the citizens that we don’t have $60 or $70 million laying around.”
The pressure on local governments has already changed the regional vote count. Cornelius, Huntersville and Monroe have announced they will switch from no to yes. Davidson had not decided in earlier reporting.
Nine local bodies voted to rescind support on May 20: Charlotte, Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, Matthews, Mecklenburg County, Mint Hill, Monroe and the Metropolitan Transit Commission. Together, they carried 47 weighted votes.
CRTPO has 74 weighted votes. Earlier reporting described Charlotte as holding 31 weighted votes, while WCCB characterized the city’s share of Wednesday’s vote as 42 percent. Those descriptions have not been presented consistently across reporting, and this article does not attempt to reconcile them.
The regional outcome now depends on whether enough weighted support exists on Wednesday for CRTPO to ratify the project’s return.
The same night, council debated what affordable housing is worth
The council’s I-77 discussion came on the same night it approved selling two District 2 parcels at 3924 and 3932 Freedom Drive to Prosperity Freedom Drive LLC for $1.
The developer must build at least 12 for-sale townhomes priced for households at 60 percent and below 80 percent of area median income, with 20 years of affordability.
Mayfield warned that monthly homeowners association fees can make nominally affordable homes unaffordable. She cited a townhome project near Ashley where a $263 monthly HOA fee pushed the total cost beyond reach for intended buyers.
Johnson asked whether the developer would be required to provide written confirmation that lenders evaluated the full monthly payment, including HOA fees. City staff said that would remain part of the lender process rather than a written obligation in the land agreement.
“Because we are giving this land away for $1,” Johnson said. “We can’t get it back. This is significant. So we hold the leverage.”
Mayo estimated the parcels’ value near $1 million and objected to the 20-year affordability commitment.
“I don’t think a 20 year deal is the best that we could do,” she said.
The parcel debate offers a smaller example of the same issue facing the I-77 vote: public assets and public promises are being exchanged for future benefits, while the city’s leverage depends on what is written before the decision is made.
Monday’s decision is about more than toll lanes
Council member JD Mazuera Arias described the choice bluntly: “Either raise our taxes and burden our residents, or pass the project.”
That framing leaves out the unresolved terms, even after Monday’s vote.
By reinstating support, Charlotte avoided the immediate reimbursement claim city staff had described in the roughly $59 million to $69 million range, while WCCB reported the threatened penalty as roughly $64 million and Spectrum News 1 reported the city’s estimate at around $60 million. But the vote also keeps alive a project whose alternatives analysis was never independently procured, whose developer has not been selected and whose headline community benefits are still not contractually enforceable.
Monday’s action means Charlotte has accepted the state’s preferred project path. It still does not, by itself, guarantee a grocery store, a highway cap, a bridge replacement or protection against displacement.
Those commitments would need to be written, funded and enforceable. For west Charlotte, where Black neighborhoods have long absorbed the costs of highway planning more than the benefits, that is now the live question.
The sources reviewed for this report include WCCB’s Sept. 21 report on the vote, Spectrum News 1’s Sept. 22 report, Sustain Charlotte’s Sept. 20 public records review, WFAE’s Sept. 14 account of the council debate, WFAE’s CRTPO explainer, Charlotte Mercury’s reporting on the state claim, WSOC-TV’s report on the potential tax impact, NCDOT’s project page, Spectrum News 1’s coverage of the May vote and coverage from the Charlotte Observer and Charlotte Business Journal.
