RALEIGH – “Smart growth” advocates won the initial fight in Jackson County, but the battle over property rights in this western N.C. county known for its beautiful mountain views has moved to a new front — elective politics.
A grass-roots group of property rights supporters is recruiting candidates to run for two county commission seats in November. Both seats are held by commissioners who in August voted for restrictive regulations affecting new subdivisions and land with steep slopes in unincorporated areas of the county.
“We plan to fight it in the voting booth,” said Marty Jones, co-founder of Property Owners of Jackson County. “We’ve talked to some [possible candidates] but don’t have firm commitments at this point, and there may be others we haven’t talked to that are willing, that we don’t know about yet.”
Jones said that if candidates aligned with the group’s view of development win the seats held by commissioner Mark Jones and Vice Chairman Joe Cowan — who voted for the restrictions — a pro-property rights, pro-business perspective would take a 3-2 majority on the board.
The move into the political arena is in response to the county commission’s passage Aug. 6 of two regulations members of the property owners association view as an over-reaction to growth. Many property owners attended public hearings during the spring and summer, hoping to persuade commissioners to back away from the proposals. Critics told commissioners the rules they were planning to adopt would stymie economic growth, increase housing costs, and unduly limit property owners’ rights.
However, the association’s opposition didn’t affect the outcome. Both the Subdivision Ordinance and the Mountain and Hillside Development Ordinance passed by 4-1 votes. “I think it was a knee-jerk reaction to what they perceive as rapid growth, which just isn’t there,” said Jones, owner of Marty Jones Realty in Cashiers. The lone dissent came from County Commission Chairman Brian McMahan, who for months had argued the ordinances went too far. The same night, commissioners unanimously voted to end a five-month development moratorium that had been imposed while the new regulations were drafted. The association opposed the moratorium as well.
The 71-page Subdivision Ordinance includes this proclamation of intent: “Public health, safety, economy, good order, appearance, convenience, morals, and the general welfare require the harmonious, orderly and progressive development of land within the jurisdiction of the county.” That intent translates into, among other things, a requirement that any major new, nonfamily subdivision, defined as more than eight lots, must set aside 25 percent of the land as open space.
The Mountain and Hillside Development Ordinance, commonly referred to as the steep-slope ordinance, sets out additional limits. A two-acre minimum lot size is required for land with an average slope of 30 to 34 percent, and only one dwelling can be built. Required lot sizes grow with the slope, culminating in a minimum 10-acre lot for land measured at a 45 percent slope or higher. The 37-page ordinance also covers “best management practices” for things such as land disturbance and grading; vegetation, landscaping, and habitat; historic and archaeological resources; sensitive natural areas; outside lighting; and building colors. The ordinance strongly encourages “that dark or earth-tone colors be used to make the home less conspicuous as seen from off site.”
County Commissioner Tom Massie defends the regulations as fair to property owners and necessary for public safety. He said the steep-slope ordinance ensures that people will build on more solid earth and thus help prevent landslides. North Carolina’s historic drought and concerns over groundwater also helped push the issues to the forefront, Massie said.
“We don’t have a whole lot of public water systems in the mountains because of our topography, so we rely predominantly on groundwater supply through wells. So we’re looking at larger minimum lot sizes the steeper the slope gets to handle the storm water runoff and to make sure we’ve got groundwater recharge to those wells everybody is depending on,” the commissioner said. Massie acknowledged there is still opposition to the restrictions, but he said most county residents consider it “a non-issue now.”
Tom Stovall, owner of Southern Lumber Home Center in Sylva, doesn’t blame county commissioners, but he said the county’s development moratorium is one of three reasons his family’s store is closing. For more than 60 years, the store has supplied flooring, doors, appliances, landscaping, and more to the area’s building industry. Stovall said the store’s shutdown was caused by a general housing slowdown, stiff competition from a new Lowe’s store, and the moratorium.
“One of the first things the moratorium did was shut down any new work at future subdivisions because they didn’t have any ordinances in place, and they weren’t going to issue any permits to new subdivisions,” Stovall said. For a while he continued to serve customers who needed materials for existing projects. But, combined with the other challenges he faced, it wasn’t enough to sustain the store. He said he isn’t bitter, but he describes the demise of the business his grandfather started in 1945 as “a heartbreaker.”
“The only thing I can go on is what I hear from my customers,” Stovall said. “I know that half a dozen of my best custom homebuilders haven’t had any work since September of last year to speak of, as far as a new custom home in a new subdivision or anything like that. Everybody’s got cold feet about building anything.” When liquidation of Stovall’s store is complete, 35 people will have lost full- and part-time jobs, including 50-year-old Stovall, who isn’t sure what his future holds.
Association co-founder Travis Lewis, a landowner, looks forward to a day when the development regulations are eased. He supports some rules, but he said the county had gone overboard, particularly with the open-space requirement. “Somebody’s got to pay for the 25 percent space,” he said. “It has to be figured into the lots that are left to be sold. It’s not free land the developer is just setting aside. It’s just going to drive the price of our property up.”
Donna Martinez is a contributing editor to Carolina Journal.