Buying Land in Chatham County, North Carolina

Wolfspeed: the world's largest silicon-carbide plant is rising near Siler City

In September 2022, Wolfspeed -- a North Carolina-based leader in silicon-carbide semiconductor materials -- announced it would build what it describes as the world's largest, most advanced silicon-carbide materials facility at the Chatham-Siler City Advanced Manufacturing (CAM) Site, a roughly 1,800-acre certified megasite off U.S. 64 West. The resulting John Palmour Manufacturing Center for Silicon Carbide represents an investment Wolfspeed and state officials have put at roughly $4.8 to $5 billion over time, spread across a 2.2-million-square-foot campus, with a stated goal of more than 1,800 new jobs at an average salary well above the county's historical average. State and local governments have committed more than $700 million in incentives, tied in part to the company hitting hiring targets. Re-verified in September 2026: the plant has moved past construction into early operations -- Wolfspeed reports the facility reached "production readiness" in late 2025 and was, as of 2026 reporting, growing its first batches of 200mm silicon-carbide crystals and shipping initial wafers to the company's Mohawk Valley Fab in New York for chip fabrication, a genuine operational milestone beyond the construction-phase status reported in early 2025.

For a land buyer, the practical implication runs beyond the plant's own footprint: a facility of this scale draws housing demand, service-industry growth, and infrastructure pressure to Siler City and the surrounding rural county for years, which is part of why the water/wastewater story below and the zoning-rewrite story on our standalone page both matter so much right now. Get current information on traffic patterns, housing inventory, and permitted uses near the CAM site directly from the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation and Planning Department rather than relying on any fixed snapshot, including this one.

VinFast in Moncure: a second megasite, stalled into a lawsuit

Chatham County is also home to a second, much less certain megaproject: a VinFast electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing site in Moncure, first announced in 2022 with a roughly $4 billion investment figure and thousands of promised jobs. That project has not gone the way Wolfspeed's has. Construction slowed and then largely stopped by the end of 2024, environmental permits were allowed to lapse, and by 2026 the company had submitted scaled-back permit requests and pushed its own production target out to 2028. In May 2026, North Carolina's Attorney General filed suit against VinFast seeking to reclaim the Moncure site, alleging the company had breached its agreements on construction, hiring, and operating deadlines, and Chatham County's Board of Commissioners separately voted to terminate its roughly $400 million economic development agreement with the company.

The reason this matters for a land buyer is not the litigation itself but what it means for planning around it: any land near the Moncure site that was being evaluated on the assumption of a large, imminent employer arriving on a fixed schedule should be re-evaluated against the actual, current legal and construction status, which as of 2026 was still unresolved and actively changing. Treat any pre-2026 marketing material, site plan, or jobs projection tied to this specific project as outdated until confirmed otherwise.

Water and wastewater capacity is the connective tissue behind both projects

Both megaprojects have put real, documented strain on rural water and sewer infrastructure that was never built for industrial-scale demand. Siler City's wastewater treatment plant had a multi-year pattern of Clean Water Act permit violations, including nitrogen levels reported at up to roughly 800% of its permitted limit, which led state regulators to place a moratorium on new sewer connections even as the town negotiated a Special Order by Consent to let Wolfspeed discharge up to 290,000 gallons per day during construction and ramp-up. A roughly $62 million wastewater treatment plant expansion, backed partly by USDA Rural Development funding, is underway to roughly double capacity from 2 million to 4 million gallons per day to serve current and future demand from Wolfspeed, Mountaire Farms, and the broader CAM site. Separately, Sanford and Pittsboro merged their water utilities into a new regional provider, TriRiver Water, in 2024, and Siler City and Chatham County have since moved to join that same regional system.

For a buyer evaluating rural land anywhere near Siler City, Pittsboro, or the CAM site, this is a genuinely useful thing to ask about directly: whether a specific parcel is inside or reachable by the expanding municipal/regional water and sewer service area, or whether it will remain dependent on a private well and septic system regardless of how much industrial infrastructure gets built nearby. See our national guide to rural utilities for the general framework, and confirm current service-area maps with Siler City's Public Works department or TriRiver Water directly.

Zoning is mid-transition -- see our standalone Chatham County zoning page

Chatham County's zoning picture is complicated enough right now that it gets its own dedicated page rather than a short summary here: the county has an existing zoning ordinance covering roughly 201 square miles outside the towns of Pittsboro, Siler City, Goldston, and a small piece of Cary, but a new countywide Unified Development Ordinance adopted in November 2024 has had its effective date pushed back four times -- most recently, per a May 18, 2026 Board of Commissioners vote, to June 1, 2027 -- and, as of this page's September 2026 re-verification, still had not taken effect. See our Chatham County zoning page for the full timeline, the two statewide laws now driving the delay, and what to actually confirm about a specific parcel's current rules.

Septic, wells, and the rest of the state framework

Outside the reach of expanding municipal and regional water/sewer service, a Chatham County parcel still needs the same statewide septic and well process used everywhere in North Carolina, administered locally by the Environmental Health division of Chatham County Public Health (12 East Street, Pittsboro; (919) 542-8208): a site evaluation and Improvement Permit, a Construction Authorization, and a final Operation Permit before occupancy. Chatham offers public, private, and hybrid permitting options -- meaning a licensed private soil scientist can handle part of the process alongside or instead of the county office -- which can shorten wait times during busy building seasons.