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Dillsboro leaders table zoning ordinances
By Justin Goble
Dillsboro leaders proposed an action on contentious zoning ordinances Monday (Oct. 24).
The decision came during a special meeting called to discuss proposed zoning changes.
The revised ordinances include a change in residential lot sizes from half to three-quarters of an acre, along with the identification of the town’s industrial zone along the Tuckaseigee River, allowing of a recycling facility in a commercial area and the area on Hemlock Street set aside for mobile homes.
These were on the action agenda for the board’s Sept. 13 meeting, but a vote was delayed then, too.
Town board member Emma Wertenberger said then that officials received the planning committee’s report containing the new ordinances only a few days prior and had not had the time to thoroughly examine the document.
Dillsboro resident Andy Smith, the only person to speak at the public hearing preceding the meeting, said he disagreed with many of the changes.
“I believe that the framers of these ordinances are moving too quickly to get them approved,” he said. “It appears that the ordinances are the opinion of a few people on how Dillsboro should be zoned.”
Smith said the revised ordinance code would hurt business owners in the town by not allowing them to display “open” banners, along with restricting how merchandise is displayed.
“There’s no option for tactful ‘open’ banners or flags,” he said. “And what was the rationale behind not allowing merchandise to be hung from the walls or suspended from the ceiling?”
Smith also brought up the change of the minimum lot size for residential homes. He said that many lots in the area would not meet these restrictions and could not be sold once the zoning changes were in place.
Officials said that plots could be grandfathered in, but they warned that there would be a point where it would be hard to do so.
Board member Jim Cochran, who also serves on the town’s planning committee, said that the revisions were made as a way to plan for the future of the town.
“It wasn’t really our intention to shut anyone out,” he said. “We spent considerable time discussing these issues. We were looking to the future of Dillsboro.”
Cochran, who presented the motion to table the ordinances, said that he wants the new board, which will be sworn in at the first meeting in December, to consider the committee’s revisions and decide what to do with them from there.
“I hope the new board will take these orders and refine them and do it in an expeditious manner,” he said.
In previous meetings, Cochran advocated passing the ordinances due to the 10 months that the planning committee has already spent on them.
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