APRIL 23, 2009 ISSUE
Is Boone Serious About Smart Growth?
Council Tweaks Language in Land Use Master Plan
How serious is the Boone Town Council about Smart Growth? The answer could be found in the language of its land use master plan, a document that will serve as a guide for development and redevelopment in Boone over the next 20 years.
On Tuesday, the council met with Planning Commission members, town staff and Craig Lewis of the Lawrence Group to address specific questions and concerns about the draft version of the land use plan, titled “Boone 2030: The Smart Growth Plan for the Heart of the High Country.” The town hired the Lawrence Group, a planning and design firm, to facilitate the public input process and help develop the town’s land use plan. Lewis will incorporate the suggestions and changes from Tuesday’s meeting and present a final draft of the plan to the council for adoption.
The land use master plan works together with the town’s Comprehensive Plan and other plans and programs to provide for Boone’s long-range growth, facility and service needs. The plan’s goal is to provide a general pattern for the location, distribution and character of the future land uses within Boone’s growth area. However, the land use plan itself is nonbinding—its goals and recommendations will be implemented through mechanisms such as the town’s Unified Development Ordinance, which is slated to be rewritten in accordance with the land use plan.
The land use master plan has been developed according to Smart Growth principles, a planning approach that emphasizes mixed land uses, varied housing opportunities, walkability, open space and natural preservation and a variety of transportation choices, among other qualities.
In some cases, council members seemed to back off of specific, restrictive language in the land use plan in favor of broader, more flexible language. For example, one of the draft land use plan’s implementation recommendations is to “prohibit development in the 100-year floodplain.” Council member Stephen Phillips said he thought it would be difficult to prohibit all development considering how much land and current development lies within the floodplain, and council member Liz Aycock said that, from her experience as a real estate agent, she doesn’t believe that all of the flood maps are accurate. “Prohibit” is too strong of a word, she said.
Council member Lynne Mason suggested changing the word prohibit to restrict, but she cautioned that developing in floodplain areas will create a ripple effect throughout the region.
In another example, council members and town staff said a recommendation to increase minimum stream buffers to 50 feet in urbanized areas is unrealistic for Boone. Currently, the requirement is 25 feet except in water supply watershed areas, where it is 30 feet.
“That would take a lot of property out with a 50-foot buffer,” said Jim Byrne, special assistant to the town manager and interim Development Services director. “I don’t think it’s realistic for this town.”
Mason said, “One hundred feet would be ideal, but to actually implement it here in the mountains … we’re going to have to balance that.”
The council also requested that Lewis amend a recommendation to “utilize reverse angle parking” (suggested to improve traffic flow on King Street) to instead read “consider reverse angle parking.” Town planning staff also preferred the word consider instead of develop in a recommendation to “develop a plan for an urban boulevard for U.S. 321.” Developing an urban boulevard would involve the closure and consolidation of driveways, connection of adjacent parcels through parking lots and shifting of primary driveway access to side streets instead of U.S. 321 to improve vehicular safety, relieve traffic congestion and improve walkability.
Bunk Spann, chair of the Planning Commission, said he was concerned about broadening specific language to create wiggle room.
“I’m reminded [of times in the past] where that ‘wiggle’ got us something we didn’t want,” he said. If the council intends to be solid about its land use plan, he continued, it has to have a dialogue about the unforeseen consequences of wiggle room. For instance, what is the council willing to let happen if additional development occurs in the floodplain, he said.
“Don’t end up letting development down the road give us a community we don’t want,” Spann said. “We have a chance at having a Smart Growth community. Don’t let wiggle room prohibit that.”
Planning Commission member Eric Woolridge made a similar statement during his comments.
“I don’t think we should fall back on our language,” he said.
Mason said that it is important for the council to be firm in its intentions in the language of the land use plan. “Everything we do reflects this document,” she said.
Phillips said the land use plan is “more of a recommendation,” to which Spann replied, “But the guidelines are important.”
With respect to floodplain and storm water issues, Byrne urged Lewis to incorporate information from the Dewberry & Davis flood study completed for Boone in 2000. Byrne said the study found that most major intersections in Boone would be impassable in the case of a 100- or 50-year rain event. He said the Boone area hasn’t had a bad rain event since Hurricane Hugo in 1989, but in 2004, Avery County had two 500-year rain events in a single year.
“Our time is coming,” Byrne said.
Correction: In the April 9 issue of High Country Press, an article about the Boone land use master plan incorrectly stated the draft plan includes 118 specific implementation recommendations. The draft land use plan is 118 pages long and includes about 70 implementation recommendations.
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