Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
January 4, 2007 issue
Boone’s Steep Slope and Viewshed Regulations
The most controversial issue of the year in the Town of Boone was the town council’s adoption of development regulations applying to steep slopes and the town’s viewshed.
In the wake of criticism about the Villages at Meadowview apartment complex above Wal-Mart, in 2005, the council appointed a taskforce to study the issues of multifamily and steep slope development.
The taskforce met for 18 months. Its recommendations regarding multifamily development, presented to the council early in 2006, occasioned little public comment. But its recommendations regarding steep slope and viewshed development, provoked a virtual firestorm of controversy.
In February, the town council approved the taskforce’s request for development of a geohazards map that would classify land in Boone and its extraterritorial jurisdiction into high, medium and low development hazard zones.
On April 24, the taskforce held a public information session to present the preliminary geohazards map prepared by Trigon Engineering. At that meeting, people started paying attention. The town council chambers was packed with developers and property owners, and several speakers at the meeting raised the same concerns: over-regulation, increased costs of development, impact on affordable housing, land-use restrictions, land devaluation and property rights.
At the conclusion of the session, taskforce chair Dr. Harvard Ayers asked those present to help the taskforce develop recommendations that would achieve the desired goals of protecting life, property and views without unforeseen or negative consequences.
In July, the taskforce presented its recommendations to the town council. That’s when the real outcry began. The taskforce recommended adopting the geohazards map; requiring a geologic survey to determine land stability; and setting minimum lot sizes and maximum land disturbance, square footage and impervious surface for developments 100 feet above the valley floor.
In August, the opposition united into the Committee for Responsible Environmental Regulation, a group led by local businessmen Jeff Templeton and Rob Holton. The group proposed alternatives to the taskforce’s recommendations and ran full-page ads identifying properties in Boone and its extraterritorial jurisdiction in the hazard zones defined by the geohazards map.
The committee mobilized the owners of approximately 1,400 properties to submit protest petitions to Boone’s Development Services Department.
Approximately 50 people attended a public information session in early September to voice concerns. But the scope of the opposition came into full focus at the public hearing on September 14 when an estimated 400+ people packed the large courtroom at the Watauga County courthouse. More than 60 people offered comments on the taskforce’s recommendations, with the overwhelming majority in opposition. The list of objections was long and included concerns about property valuation; increased development costs; impacts on insurance, mortgage rates/approval and resale value of homes in high hazard areas; and infringement on personal property rights.
At the close of the hearing, council member Lynne Mason made a motion to rewrite the proposed ordinance. Among the changes she requested were eliminating the geologic hazard map, defining steep slopes as those of 30 percent or greater (instead of 15 percent) and eliminating the minimum lot size and maximum land disturbance areas for single family homes and redefining the viewshed. The motion passed by a vote of 4 to 1, with Dempsey Wilcox voting in opposition, maintaining that the proposed regulations needed more work and study before being considered by the Planning Commission.
At a second public hearing on September 25 to consider the revised regulations, the Boone Town Council chambers was filled to capacity, and 21 of 24 speakers expressed opposition to the revisions regulations and expressed concerns about inaccuracies in the redrawn viewshed map.
At a special meeting on October 2, despite the Boone Area Planning Commission’s recommendation that the revised regulations not be passed, the town council approved the regulations with a vote of 4 to 1, with Dempsey Wilcox casting the dissenting vote.
A few weeks after the vote, council members Lynne Mason and Bunk Spann prepared a summary of the new regulations and a comparison between the taskforce recommendations and the far less restrictive regulations the council adopted that ran in High Country News. However, members of the opposition maintain that the regulations significantly impact a property’s development potential and have indicated that they may seek legal redress for the property rights infringement.