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Local leaders receive draft of county’s land-use plan
By Derek Hodges
Local leaders got a look at a draft copy of the county’s land use plan last Wednesday (Nov. 9).
“This is by no means a final version. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, and we want to hear from you,” consultant Gerald Greene said.
Greene and other representatives of the N.C. Division of Community Assistance have been working with county planner Linda Cable to draft the plan.
Efforts to draft the document began in late June, when county leaders requested a group be formed including county, municipal, and university and community college officials. Representatives from each of those entities were directed to submit a plan or vision for what they wanted in Jackson County over the next several years.
In early June, Commissioners’ Chairman Brian McMahan told county leaders the plan needed to be created. N.C. Department of Transportation officials would not consider new road construction in the county without such a document, McMahan said.
The main purpose of the document is to give the current status of the county through demographic, construction and other statistics, and plan for future growth.
“Everyone needs to think not what their community looks like today, but what they want it to look like in the future. We have to look at how we accommodate all that growth in a way that benefits the county,” Greene told the group in June.
The plan Greene presented to the group includes information on where the population is growing, in what age groups it’s growing, where the new residents are coming from and what jobs they’re looking for. Also included is information on the county’s history and plans for its future.
County leaders asked each town (Dillsboro, Forest Hills, Sylva and Webster) and educational institution (Western Carolina University and Southwestern Community College) in the county, as well as the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority to draft their own plans to be incorporated into the county’s. So far the document includes growth plans from Cashiers, Dillsboro, Sylva, WCU, SCC and TWSA.
Based on the document they were presented, several of those at the meeting said local leaders’ main focus for the next few years should be on infrastructure.
Particularly, Sylva Manager Jay Denton and Planning Director Jim Aust focused on the need for good roads, water and sewer service, and affordable housing. Housing has become a problem as real estate prices have risen with population, Denton said.
Improving the transportation situation, one of the main motivations for starting the meetings, was a hot topic.
“We’ve got a lot of roads that need work done on them and we need a lot of new roads,” N.C. Transportation Board member and county Commissioner Conrad Burrell said.
At commissioners’ June meeting Burrell said NCDOT would consider those improvements only if the plan was in place.
Local leaders now have a period to comment on the draft plan before it is ratified. A special meeting may be called to finalize the document, McMahan said.
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