Mission City Church, Freedom Communities, and the True Homes Foundation walked the Charlotte City Council through their 49-townhome affordable-housing petition Monday night — petition 2025-027, a 5.38-acre parcel east of Valleydale Road in District 2. All 49 units would be eligible for House Charlotte, the city's down-payment-assistance program. Every unit would be sold rather than rented. The deeds would be restricted from renting for the lifetime of the units, and the units would carry an affordability restriction for at least seven years after sale.

The petition is the Faith in Housing initiative in practice: a church partners with an affordable-housing developer to put workforce homes on its surplus land.

Council Member LaWana Slack-Mayfield, at-large, used her floor time for a continuation of an argument she has now made publicly three times this year. The Faith in Housing program label, she said, does not in itself recommend a project. "Faith and Housing is an initiative," she told the dais. "Every project isn't a project that has a stamp on it to say this is the right project for this particular area."

That was the same argument she made on April 22, when she voted with the council majority to approve two Faith in Housing rezonings, and on April 23, when she voted no on a third one and told the chamber the label was not "an automatic check."

Mayfield's specific concerns Monday were about monthly HOA fees in a deed-restricted ownership development at a moment when, she said, layoffs in the regional economy are pressuring household budgets. She also asked why the public file for petition 2025-027 still shows only one community meeting — an April 28, 2025 session that drew 16 attendees — when the petitioner said a second meeting occurred in February 2026. City staff acknowledged the February meeting report had not been uploaded.

Council Member J.D. Mazuera Arias (District 5) pushed the petitioner on the seven-year deed restriction, telling Ron Staley of True Homes Foundation that "as a standard, we like to push for more than 20 years." Staley said the foundation is open to a longer restriction if council prefers.

A neighborhood speaker, Oak Street resident Bridget Harvey, asked the council to consider an existing easement through the adjacent Family Dollar property rather than routing development traffic onto Somerville Road, which she said is already a single-lane choke point when cars park on both sides.

Council Member Malcolm Graham, District 2, told the room he would walk the site again with the petitioner and neighborhood residents before the council vote. The Zoning Committee meets on June 2 to make its recommendation. The council vote has not been scheduled.