Commissioners more clearly define their planning agenda

By Lisa Majors-Duff

During an extended Smart Growth planning session Jan. 23, commissioners decided the position of county planner will be readvertised at a salary higher than was first proposed - between $45,000 and $50,000.

The initial attempt to acquire a planner netted 11 applicants, of which only two had more than two years of on-the-job experience, county Manager Ken Westmoreland said. The two applicants with the most experience were being paid in the $70,000 range for their current duties, he said.

"If we can afford one, I'd love to have one," Commissioner Roberta Crawford said.

Once hired, the county planner's ultimate goal will be the development of a comprehensive land use plan, the board agreed. With assistance from a seven-member task force, the planner will be asked to use the results of two years worth of Smart Growth community meetings and put together a long-range plan encompassing all that is necessary to ensure orderly physical and economic growth in Jackson County.

The plan should take into consideration the ordinances the county currently enforces, as well as spell out ways to achieve affordable housing, better education opportunities, improved public safety, water and sewer requirements, recreation, transportation, health care and economic development, to name a few, board members said.

"A plan of this type could take up to two years to develop," Chairman Stacy Buchanan pointed out.

With Crawford's suggestion that the seven-member task force assigned to work with the planner be citizen-based, board members agreed each would name one member from his or her district, while the remaining two would be voted on by the full board.

In addition to establishing a comprehensive land use planning task force, commissioners agreed other, smaller issues dealing with planning should be handled by a nine-member planning board. The re-established planning board will be made up of six citizen members and one representative each from the N.C. Department of Transportation, the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority and the Economic Development Commission of Jackson County.

This board will replace the 16-member planning board disbanded by commissioners last month. Members of that board were asked to continue working on two issues - revisions to both the noise ordinance and the soil sedimentation ordinance - but only two agreed to do so, said Tamera Crisp, who serves as the county's planning staff member.

Planning board members had begun to discuss training requirements for local grading contractors, said Crisp, who indicated a recommendation on that ordinance could be completed quickly.

Planners offered a recommendation for revising the noise ordinance - to eliminate the section dealing with criminal penalties - but were told by commissioners to revisit the issue. No additional work has been done, Crisp said, and a new recommendation could be several months away.

The first priority for the newly-established planning board will be to develop a subdivision ordinance, board members agreed. This ordinance, which was one of three recommendations approved in July as part of Smart Growth recommendations, would "ensure that residential and commercial growth is managed in order to preserve and maintain the beauty of the mountains, community aesthetics and the overall rural nature of the county."

If the recommended strategy is followed, the subdivision ordinance would apply to all residential and commercial property offered for sale, excluding property transferred between family members, and it would incorporate both the watershed protection and ridge top development ordinances. With a subdivision ordinance in hand, the reauthorized planning board may need to act as a board of adjustment, Buchanan said, should variances be required.

Turning to a more immediate issue, board members agreed to meet with Bryson City paving contractor Mark Fortner, who earlier this month appeared before the board with his attorney to request they listen to several "experts" discuss his plans to build an asphalt plant.

"(Fortner) doesn't want to talk to planners; he wants to go to where the buck stops," Crawford said when Commissioner Eddie Madden suggested Fortner's request be delayed until the new planning board is established.

Speaking on behalf of his client, Asheville attorney Craig Justus said Fortner's presentation would be "site-specific" and that a variance to the county's industrial development ordinance may be requested.

"We can't give him a variance," Buchanan said. "The only thing we can do is amend our ordinance."

A date for a meeting with Fortner was not discussed.

Back to Archive: 01/30/03.