RALEIGH – No, the title of this column is not a reference to my latest excursion into home improvement. It is a metaphor for what the Cabarrus County commission did earlier this week when it decided to address growth-management issues by imposing a six-month moratorium on the approval of plans for any new housing subdivisions in the unincorporated parts of the county.
Cabarrus has been one of the most rapidly growing communities in North Carolina. Like fellow Charlotte-area counties Union and Iredell, Brunswick and Pender counties around Wilmington, and Raleigh-area counties such as Johnston, Franklin, and Harnett, Cabarrus has become a popular site for bedroom communities. As traditional employment centers have declined or changed, the mix of residents has also changed, introducing both short-term fiscal pressures within city and county governments (a JLF report some years ago studied whether growth drives up governmental cost) and no small amount of social and cultural tension.
It’s hard to disentangle these differing effects of rapid growth when assessing why a board such as the Cabarrus commission would opt to react with a growth moratorium. Were they motivated by the need to build more public schools to accommodate expected changes in student enrollment? According to local officials, a six-month hiatus for residential development isn’t really long enough to make much of a difference in school needs. Is the fundamental issue really one of agency fatigue and overwork? Well, certainly high growth means high demand for permit approvals and other pressure on local planning agencies and authorities. Are utilities inadequate to handle additional capacity? I’m told that Cabarrus municipalities used to sell millions of gallons of water a day to manufacturing facilities such as Pillowtex, so building out a new customer base wouldn’t be a bad thing to help cover fixed costs.
Many unanswered questions remain, but one thing is certain: even a brief moratorium is an unnecessarily sweeping response that will impose real costs. My colleague Chad Adams, a Lee county commissioner who directs JLF’s Center for Local Innovation, argues that any practical problems associated with Cabarrus’ rapid growth should have been remedied with policies far less intrusive and categorical than imposing a moratorium. “I think it will be detrimental to the economy of Cabarrus County,” he told the local paper. “It’s a government-caused problem, why should it be taken out on private builders?”
That’s a good question that also, at this point, lacks an answer. One can only hope that Cabarrus is not following the path blazed by places such as Cary and Davidson, where developers were labeled villains for their despicable impulse to give consumers what they want.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.