JANUARY 21, 2010 ISSUE
Commissioners Receive Citizens’ Plan for Watauga
Plan Oversight Group, Citizens, Consultants Spend Three Years Crafting County’s New Comprehensive Plan
Watauga County’s Plan Oversight Group presented the county’s new comprehensive plan, dubbed the “Citizens’ Plan for Watauga,” to the Watauga Commissioners this week. To view the entire document, click to www.wataugacounty.org. Next week, High Country Press will present a summary of the plan.
Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.
Listening is a virtue, and it is crucial for success, for communication, for collaboration, for imagination and for successful county planning.
For the past three years, the Plan Oversight Group, which was appointed by the Watauga Commissioners and tasked with creating Watauga County’s new Comprehensive Plan, dubbed the “Citizens’ Plan for Watauga,” has done just that. The Plan Oversight Group (POG) listened to citizen after citizen, idea after idea and grievance after grievance through a large number of community meetings, gathering piles of useful input that was massaged into a plan that will, in theory and purpose, manage change in Watauga County for the next decade and beyond.
“We went to great lengths to make sure every citizen of this county had a voice and provided input for this plan,” said Planning Board Member Charlie Wallin.
The Watauga Commissioners hosted a joint meeting with the Watauga Planning Board on January 19 to receive the final draft of the Citizens’ Plan for Watauga from the POG. To view the final document and summary, click to www.wataugacounty.org.
The commissioners accepted the plan and will now review the document, add a discussion on the document to their February retreat agenda, plan an intergovernmental retreat, which could include ASU, and then formulate action steps gathered from the retreats for future implementation of the plan’s goals.
“The last plan [Watauga County] had was created 15 years ago, and typically counties take care of this every five to 10 years, so this was due,” said Watauga Board of Commissioners Chair Jim Deal, who added that the plan “is not intended to be extremely specific at this time.”
“This plan represents years and years of hard work,” said Wallin.
Background
In 2007, the Watauga Commissioners authorized the preparation of a comprehensive plan for the county and appointed a seven-member POG to guide preparation of the plan, which is called the Citizens’ Plan for Watauga. The POG is made up of one commissioner, one member of the Planning Board and five citizens appointed by each of the commissioners from within their respective district. The POG includes Commissioner Winston Kinsey, Wallin, Steve Loflin, Fred Badders, Buck Robbins, Shelton Wilder and Bill Sherwood.
The Citizens’ Plan for Watauga is an expression of the vision of Watauga citizens and county leaders’ 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.
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.
In late 2007 and early 2008, and then again in November and December 2009, the POG sponsored a series of community meetings to gather public input regarding important community issues.
The Plan, At a Glance
The plan is separated into nine aspects of the local community that are citizen recommended as priorities for preparing for and managing change—transportation, economic development, economic gateways, key economic sectors, water and sewer, key community services, affordable/workforce housing, preservation of unique community identities and heritage and parks and recreation.
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.
Discussion
Reactions to the plan from the commissioners and planning board members were unanimously positive; Deal commented that he particularly appreciated a principle in the plan that stated, “All efforts to promote economic development should focus on ‘better rather than bigger’ and enhancing ‘quality of life.’
“That’s what it should be like here in Watauga,” he continued.
POG Member Steve Loflin said that he and the POG believe it’s prime time to implement such a plan.
“We’ve seen dramatic growth in the last decades, and we haven’t had a new [comprehensive plan] in a long time. Now we find ourselves in times of economic downturn, which may give us an opportunity to catch up and be more proactive,” said Loflin. “We think the Planning Board should take this plan and develop implementation plans.”
Without delving into the full summary of the plan’s recommendations, Loflin identified a handful of objectives he and the POG hope will be addressed in a proactive manner by whichever board takes on the implementation responsibilities. The objectives are to support and be involved in the creation of a Boone Bypass, host more intergovernmental planning meetings and consider the POG’s corridor concept. According to the Citizens’ Plan for Watauga, distinct and constantly changing primary transportation corridors, such as highways 421, 321 and 105, characterize Watauga County. These corridors, according to the plan, are considered the strategic or key gateways to the community and, therefore, managing change within these “Gateway Corridors” should be guided by the principles outlined in the plan.
Loflin also shared that, after the POG researched past county comprehensive plans, the group learned that many of the recommendations brought up over the last 25 years of planning and gathering input are still coming up today.
Deal agreed with Loflin’s recommendations and observation, noting that the Boone Bypass idea has been circulated around the county for no less than 30 years and that, because of its cost in regards to the current NCDOT funding model, he doesn’t “think that will happen in my lifetime.” Deal and Commissioner Tim Futrelle said that discussions about a Boone Bypass, if warranted, would have to start with the Boone Town Council.
Before accepting the final Citizens’ Plan for Watauga, Deal asked Denny Martin of Martin-McGill Associates, the consultant firm hired by Watauga County for help in crafting the new plan, where he thought the county should go from here. Martin suggested accepting the recommendations and then selecting a vehicle—whether the Planning Board, Board of Commissioners or other entity—to select priorities and get to work on implementation.
Deal agreed and noted that the Town of Boone and ASU recently completed similar comprehensive plans, which may provide a unique opportunity for collaboration or collective change.
“It seems to be the best possible time to sit together—Boone, Watauga County, ASU—and look at how our plans fit together; we could have a joint meeting,” said Deal.
Next week, High Country Press will include a summary of the recommendations listed in the Citizens’ Plan for Watauga in part two. Review the plan online by clicking to www.wataugacounty.org. Draft copies of the plan are available at the Watauga County Planning & Inspections Department office, located at 331 Queen Street, Suite A in Boone.
“And we ask that you please don’t put this on a shelf to collect dust,” said Wallin during his closing remarks, who added that the POG acknowledged from the beginning of the process that past comprehensive plans have been utilized less than initially desired.
NEXT WEEK:
High Country Press will do its best to deter dust collection on the Citizens’ Plan for Watauga by continuing our explanation of the plan through a recommendation summary that will appear in our January 28 issue.
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