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Sylva town officials hear opposition to proposed annexation
By Carey King
Sylva’s mid-April move to annex 31 acres on Nanny’s Lane and Griffin Road is part of a town plan to develop an alternative route to N.C. 107, area residents found out last week (June 1).
At an informational meeting for property owners, zoning administrator Jim Aust said that the recently-annexed portion may someday be the entrance into a planned development linking Webster Road to Barnes Road near Wal-Mart. The development – to include homes, apartments and green spaces – would be located just west of already-developed commercial tracts along 107. Its main road would help pull traffic from the congested highway, Aust said.
After Sylva leaders learned this spring that Bill Melton had purchased the 54 acres where the envisioned development would be located, they moved swiftly to annex the Nanny’s Lane and Griffin Road area off N.C. 116. Adopting the annexation resolution in an emergency meeting April 15, Sylva blocked Webster’s planned move to take the same land.
Melton will probably volunteer to have the town annex his property, Aust said.
To property owners at the June 1 meeting, however, this background information wasn’t immediately apparent. Aust began the evening with a discussion of services the town would offer the annexed area – including garbage pick-up and fire and police protection – and then continued with a list of costs the area would impose upon the town.
It wasn’t until citizens began peppering Aust and town board members with questions and opinions that the full annexation explanation came out.
“What is the purpose of your doing this?” asked Fannie Roper, whose elderly aunt lives in the area. “The people that live on this land have already got services – water, septic and fire. In other words, all (annexation) is for is for taxes.”
“Do you all know something that we don’t know about the future?” asked resident Jim Evans, who’d heard a rumor that a “big box” store was planning to locate in the area. “All you’re getting is three widowed women and two senior citizens. What’s the benefit of that to Sylva?”
Sylva Mayor Brenda Oliver told the group that annexation would benefit them, not only because they’ll receive town services, but because town zoning ordinances will restrict the area’s development.
The county has no zoning laws, Oliver noted.
“This way, the town will have control about what’s back there, and there won’t be trailers and such,” said board member Eldridge Painter. “If (Melton) goes up there right now and starts in, he can do anything he wants with it.”
Still, the audience remained unconvinced of the town’s intentions.
“We’re coming into the city limits to benefit this one individual?” resident Walter Ray Bradley asked.
“It’s not necessarily the idea of coming into the town (that worries us), but how the town will take us for (the developer’s) benefit,” added his wife, Joanne.
Aust told the residents that he hopes to hear from all landowners and is planning a work session with them all to discuss their future intentions for their properties. The session will be scheduled after a public meeting on the proposed annexation is held July 13.
“(The public meeting) will be a time to state how you feel, and what you’d like to see and not like to see,” Oliver told the residents. “I understand from your side that (annexation) is not what you would probably prefer happen.”
As the meeting broke up, one property owner told board members that they may one day discover that the annexation was a bad move.
“Since we’re all old, we might call you about six times a day to come ‘do this’ and ‘do that,’” Evans said. “You might wish you’d never heard of us.”
Cope Creek, Hall Heights, Woody Hampton
Sylva leaders passed a resolution June 3 on its next annexation step – 19.5 acres on Cope Creek Road, a 13.3-acre tract owned by Carlton Brown’s Buckhead Development, and 20.53 acres on Hall Heights and Woody Hampton roads.
An informational meeting for residents will be held at Town Hall at 6 p.m. Monday, July 19, with a public hearing to follow at the same time Monday, Aug. 16.
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