NOVEMBER 5, 2009 ISSUE
Crafting the Citizens’ Plan for Watauga
Community Meetings Garner Public Input, Final Meeting in Boone Thursday
Fulfilling its promise to transparently display its progress on Watauga County’s new Comprehensive Plan, dubbed the “Citizens’ Plan for Watauga,” the seven-member Plan Oversight Group (POG), which was appointed by the Board of Commissioners and has spent three years crafting the plan from citizens’ and county leaders’ input, hosted two community meetings this week where more than 20 citizens learned about the plan and provided feedback and visions for the county’s future.
The POG will host the final community meeting on the plan this Thursday, November 5, at 6:00 p.m. in the Watauga County Administration Building, located beside the courthouse on King Street in downtown Boone. The public is encouraged to attend.
After the final meeting, county residents will have until Sunday, November 22, to review the plan online by clicking to www.wataugacounty.org. Draft copies of the plan are also available at the Watauga County Planning & Inspections Department office, located at 331 Queen Street, Suite A in Boone. Prior to November 22, residents can submit input on the plan by emailing watauga.plan@ncmail.net.
Once all input is gathered, the POG will review the comments from the meetings and online submissions, recommend final edits and revise the plan. The revised plan will then be presented to the Board of Commissioners for adoption.
“With this plan, we must ensure that what is good about our community can be preserved for future generations,” said Fred Badders, POG member.
Background
In 2007, the Board of Commissioners authorized the preparation of a comprehensive plan for the county and appointed a seven-member POG to guide the preparation of the plan, which is called the Citizens’ Plan for Watauga.
The Citizens’ Plan for Watauga is an expression of the vision of Watauga citizens and leaders of the county’s goals and objectives for managing change in the community. The plan’s purpose is to provide a balance between managing change, preserving community traditions, protecting the natural environment and enhancing quality of life.
The document is a reflection of the Watauga community’s concerns for such principles. At the same time, the plan focuses on new issues that have emerged, such as sustainability and green issues, which are of great importance to the future of the Watauga community, according to the plan.
Focuses of the plan include county demographics, such as population trends, seasonal population and housing; economic trends, such as employment and wages by industry, tourism statistics, principal employers, the unemployment rate and commuters; physiographic features of the county, such as hydrology and flood hazards, topographic characteristics, slope characteristics, elevation diversity, protected ridges, soil types, significant natural areas, watersheds, public lands and land use classifications; transportation, such as transportation planning and the proposed Boone Bypass; economic development, such as infrastructure, proposed economic gateways and key economic sectors; water and sewer; key community services, such as schools, law enforcement, emergency services and community centers; affordable housing; preservation of community, such as preserving unique community identities and heritage, national historic sites and districts and farmland; parks and recreation; managing change in the county, taking into account natural limitations, municipal planning jurisdictions, gateway corridors, unique community areas and rural/agricultural regions; and implementation of the plan.
In late 2007 and early 2008, the POG sponsored a series of community meetings to gather public input regarding important community issues and priorities and agreed to convene future meetings to review the progress of the planning process with the public. The POG is made up of one commissioner, one member of the Watauga County Planning Board and five citizens appointed by each of the commissioners from within their respective district. The POG includes Commissioner Winston Kinsey, Planning Board Member Charlie Wallin, Steve Loflin, Badders, Buck Robbins, Shelton Wilder and Bill Sherwood.
“This plan is two years in the making. It’s a beautiful piece of work and we do want people to study it,” Kinsey said. “We wanted this to be the citizens’ plan, so we worked from the issues the public brought to us.”
From the citizen responses, the POG developed recommendations in numerous work sessions addressing the issues that are important to citizens. The key question derived from Phase 1 was, “What do the county’s citizens want this plan to accomplish?” Watauga County citizens answered the question with the following responses:
- The Citizens’ Plan for Watauga must demonstrate that the Board of Commissioners shares the concerns and priorities of the public.
- It should indicate that the country commission is prepared to take a proactive leadership role.
- It should reflect communication with public and private agencies and groups working independently for Watauga’s future, such as the N.C. Department of Transportation, the National Park Service and economic development organizations.
- It must establish goals and place the responsibilities for meeting them.
- It should suggest strategies and approaches for reaching goals.
- It must report on the plan and involve the citizenry.
- Finally, it should establish a process for periodic review and updating.
“We’re trying not to legislate a method—we want to work together toward an outcome,” explained Wilder during Tuesday’s community meeting at Parkway Elementary.
Taking the thinking a step further, during the initial meetings, citizens identified a list of prominent issues affecting the county that need to be addressed. The issues are:
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Traffic congestion
- Water availability
- Protection of natural resources
- Farmland/large tract preservation
- Clear land use divisions
- Preservation of unique community identities and mountain heritage
- Economic development/employment/affordable housing
- Emergency services keeping pace with growth
- Educational opportunities
- Widespread recreational opportunities
Community Meetings
Six residents attended Monday’s community meeting and 14 attended Tuesday’s community meeting, in addition to multiple members of the POG. During the meetings, a member of the POG summarized the process to date and then Denny Martin of Martin-McGill Associates, the consultant firm hired by Watauga County for help in crafting the new plan, presented an outline of the entire plan to residents. After learning about the plan, residents were encouraged to ask questions and provide feedback during the meetings. Members of the POG took notes during the question and input sessions and promised to incorporate them into a revised plan.
According to Badders, the last comprehensive plan for Watauga County was drafted in 1992. “Much has changed; change is inevitable and we must change in the best way possible,” he said.
Bunk Spann, a county resident, former Boone Town Council member and current chair of the Boone Area Planning Commission, said Tuesday that he appreciates the language of “managing change” in the plan, but “I hope, as the county moves forward, they’ll figure out ‘what’ to manage.” Spann added that he hopes the POG and commissioners will “think more about creating villages instead of urban sprawl,” so that local communities can have accessible services and businesses located nearby instead of having to travel the highways to get to sporadically placed strip malls.
Park Terrell, owner of a local Nationwide Insurance agency, said the most important focus of the plan should be stewardship of the local natural beauty.
“If change is inevitable, why not manage responsibly?” Terrell asked. “Whether we grew up here or moved here, we are the stewards of this land and resources, and we need to preserve it for future generations; we need to preserve the small communities. People come here because of the natural beauty…stewardship is the main key here.”
Local resident Susie Winters warned that the plan’s language of “managing growth” may seem like a precursor to zoning to many residents, but Badders assured her that was not the case and that zoning had not even come up during POG or community meetings. In addition, Winters said that the plan seemed to be focused on growth and development and not on people. She hopes the revised plan will include ways to help embattled residents, such as those working in local agriculture.
“I would like to see pro-agriculture thinking in the report,” she added.
Other attendees questioned how the POG and commissioners would define affordable housing. Martin explained that, in past meetings, lively debates over an exact dollar figure took place, but no one could agree on even an acceptable range. That being said, Martin is leaning toward a definition that would state that affordable housing would be defined in regards to the median income of an area. The problem with that equation currently, Terrell pointed out, was that the plan lists the median family income in Watauga County as $56,485 for 2008—an annual income that affords an approximately $140,000 home, which there is little stock of currently in the county.
Spann also commented on the four options for the proposed Boone Bypass, offering a fifth, cost-effective option. Spann championed the “low-build option,” which uses existing roads and limits impact to the environment and existing neighborhoods.
“We sincerely thank the citizens of Watauga for your input and support of this important planning initiative, and we encourage your continued participation,” said Planning and Inspections Director Joe Furman.
For more information, click to www.wataugacounty.org or call 828-265-8043.
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