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Sylva leaders discuss potential growth areas
By Carey King
Though there’s been no formal vote, Sylva leaders Tuesday (April 5) directed Planning Administrator Jim Aust to pursue the creation of an “area of consideration” and to look into annexation of properties along N.C. 107 toward Cullowhee.
The discussion was the first about the town’s plans for expansion since board members in February rejected a plan to annex the Nanny’s Lane area along N.C. 116. That vote pitted pro-annexation board members Maurice Moody and Eldridge Painter against Danny Allen and Ray Lewis, who said the move would have been too costly, and Anne Cabe, who said town taxes would have been too high for the area’s elderly residents.
Moody and Painter both said they voted for the measure in order to give Sylva more control over development cropping up along town limits.
The discussion Tuesday was an attempt to bring the leaders “back to the table to regroup and refocus,” said town Manager Richard McHargue.
“We’re going to have to work together. We’re going to have to get a majority and keep going,” Painter said.
Board members last October asked Aust and the town’s planning board to look into creating an extra-territorial jurisdiction – a boundary up to one mile outside town limits in which residents must obey Sylva zoning laws. Following recent failed annexation attempts of both the Nanny’s Lane/N.C. 116 area and property on Hall Heights, Woody Hampton and Cope Creek roads, that direction changed Tuesday to creating an “area of consideration” – a designated district surrounding town limits that would impose no regulations on those that live there.
What the designation would do, Aust said, is give residents a “heads-up” that Sylva may one day consider annexing them. It would also allow town leaders to fast-track the annexation procedure should they decide to take in property within that zone.
“There’s no meat to it. It’s just a ‘Hey, we’re going to be nice, people, and let you know we’re looking at it,’” Aust said.
All five board members told Mayor Brenda Oliver they’d vote to establish such an area. All five also later agreed to have Aust research annexation along N.C. 107, though Lewis and Allen initially disagreed with the idea.
Without much discussion, Lewis said he preferred an ETJ over annexation; Allen said he was “kind of split” between the two.
“Annexation provides protection, too, and if you talk to the people on Tilley Creek, they would certainly like to have some zoning,” said Oliver, adding that the time has come for the town to have a comprehensive development plan.
“There may be more people wanting protection than those opposed to it, but you don’t hear from the assenting majority,” she said.
“We provide street lights. We provide sidewalks. The county doesn’t do any of that,” Moody said.
“I’ll speak right up and say you better think in terms of annexation,” said Painter.
After discussion, Oliver asked the group to come to consensus.
“Ray, can you live with annexation of 107?” Oliver asked.
Both Lewis and Allen agreed without comment.
Discussion about development along N.C. 107 was spurred by comments made during a March 29 town planning board meeting by members of the Smart Roads Alliance. The group’s Roger Turner said he was concerned about developments such as Lowe’s that will increase traffic in the area, giving weight to an argument that a bypass road is necessary – a claim the group opposes.
“No one is saying we don’t want Lowe’s, but you’ve got to think about what that looks like and what that will do to traffic,” Turner said.
Aust agreed that the N.C. 116/107 intersection is “overloaded.” Fifty percent of the county’s population lives within 5 miles of Sylva, Aust said, and the town is “the only real municipality that meets the needs of everyone.”
Aust said he has contacted the developer for the Lowe’s project, Patrick Rivers of Land Planning Associates, to discuss alternative ways to route traffic and reduce the visual “big box” impact of the Lowe’s building.
Jennings Gray, the subcontractor who March 8 asked town board members to offer incentives for Lowe’s to come, has been fired, Aust said.
“That individual should not have been standing here. He did not have (Lowe’s) consent to be standing here,” Aust said, adding that Gray was a “subcontractor working for a subcontractor for Lowe’s.”
“Not one person from Lowe’s has talked to any official in the town of Sylva,” Aust said.
McHargue said after Tuesday’s meeting that he doesn’t know what will come of the agreement the town made during Gray’s visit to apply for grants to be used in conjunction with the Lowe’s project. Very little grant money is available for such developments, he said, and Congress has proposed cutting Community Development Block Grants this year by some 90 percent.
Aust will develop a proposal map of both a potential area of consideration and possible N.C. 107 properties to annex. Discussion of the matter is expected to continue at the board’s meeting Thursday, April 21, at 10 a.m.
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