Charlotte City Council member Malcolm Graham said he wants the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and District 2 residents to have a “mutually beneficial” relationship as the state moves forward with plans to widen Interstate 77.

“Two things can be true at the same time,” Graham told reporters on Thursday. “I-77 South probably does need to be widened, but it shouldn’t be done at the expense of Black and brown communities.

NCDOT officials are in the design stages of an 11-mile, $3.2 billion project to extend I-77 toll lanes from Brookshire Freeway to the South Carolina border. McCrorey Heights, a historically Black community with about 175 homes, is situated along the proposed construction route.

When I-77 was built, its path cut through McCrorey Heights, displacing more than 240 families and destroying schools, parks and businesses, according to news accounts from that time.

Today, some McCrorey Heights homes are situated near I-77, separated from the traffic by a concrete wall constructed to mitigate noise from the highway.

Graham said residents are “extremely concerned” and “frustrated” about the plans NCDOT has produced so far — plans that Graham said “put burdens on Black and brown communities as it relates to infrastructure.”