Smart Growth committee approves recommendations

Budget hearing planned tonight

By Lisa Majors-Duff

Jackson County Commission Chairman Jay Denton, who also served on the plan task force, presented the goals to the original Smart Growth committee last Wednesday (May 30). After receiving approval from that group, Denton said the plan will be presented to the full board of commissioners for approval today (Thursday) during the regular 7 p.m. meeting.

The recommended plan was developed by a 16-person committee appointed from all areas of the county following the first round of Smart Growth meetings. The plan task force was charged with compiling citizen suggestions and turning the results into a plan for the county's future.

Addressing committee members last week, Denton said the three-page plan before them could have included many more details, "but a lot of big items are covered."

"Proactive long-range planning" is listed as the plan's first goal. The strategy given for accomplishing this includes the board of commissioners developing a comprehensive land-use plan than can be continually updated. The board would employ a professional planning staff to develop, maintain, administer and enforce the plan, along with implementing ordinances and regulations.

As part of their recommendations, the task force will request the board of commissioners appoint a new five-person committee to work on the first goal as soon as possible.

Goal two - "Manage and control residential and commercial growth" - calls for commissioners to "enact ordinances to ensure 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 and to protect the health and safety of all residents."

The strategy here calls for a subdivision ordinance that would apply to all residential and commercial properties offered for commercial resale. While it is suggested that an ordinance of this nature would specifically exclude family or estate subdivisions or those considered to have little or no impact on existing land use, it would incorporate provisions of the watershed protection ordinance and the state's ridge-top development law.

Task force members also suggested the county's subdivision ordinance require the following specifics: - Private roads should be built to state standards.

- Water and sewer systems should be installed to state standards.

- Subdivisions should have recorded plats.

- Appropriate utility easements should be recorded.

- Development on steep slopes should be prohibited.

- Appropriate setbacks should be established.

- Mobile home park requirements should be established.

- Minimum housing standards should be established to protect the health and safety of residents.

- Density requirements should include incentives for cluster development and the preservation of green space.

The plan's third goal calls for commissioners to "Provide for adequate emergency services" by developing a fire tax system to fund the county's volunteer fire departments.

Goal four is titled "Preserve the small town/rural nature of the county by creating a walkable community." The strategy calls for the county to encourage the preservation of green space in developments and to continue to assist in the development of an interconnected greenway.

"These items encompass most of what was brought up at the Smart Growth meetings," said task force committee member Tom McClure. "Most everything that is doable could be fit under these goals."

One item not included in the recommendation was countywide zoning, an item Denton said he wished the committee would have left in its proposal. "Countywide zoning was on the board, but it was taken off by a consensus of the committee," Denton said. "Tough choices like those should have been made by the commissioners.

"I'm all for a comprehensive plan with some zoning included, but I'm just one commissioner," he continued.

Prior to the 7 p.m. session, commissioners will hold a public hearing on the proposed 2002-03 budget at 6 p.m.

Public comments will also be taken on a resolution giving the county the authority to levy a local half cent sales tax beginning July 1, 2003. This tax is currently being collected by the state and is set to expire in 2003.

If approved, the sales tax is estimated to generate about $1.5 million annually, county officials said. This money would come to the county in lieu of some $622,000 generated by four other state taxes set to be repealed, including sales tax on food purchased with Food Stamps, business inventory taxes, intangible property taxes and property taxes on low-income, eldery taxpayers.

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