Letter in the 7 March 2007 Sentinel replying to a previous letter about NIMBY (not in my back yard).
I would like to thank the author of the extensive, well-reasoned and nicely written ÒNIMBYÓ letter in the 21 February Sentinel. In it the author is responding to Òrecent letters from Readers regarding proposed development in all areas of Madison County,Ó and displays class by not mentioning names or groups. I am delighted because this invites level-headed discussion of a topic at the heart of the development controversy. The statement ÒI can do what I want on my landÓ is one summation of it. What I hope to show in this letter is some of the misconceptions and false assumptions involved in these arguments, and the incorrect depiction of those who are against corporate development in these mountains.
The letter begins with several definitions of Not In My BackYard, which given certain self-centered tendencies amongst many humans, has an element of truth. People in general do not fully wake up to what is going on around them until they see it from their own driveway. By now there are corporate developments, either planned or underway, in Spillcorn, Grapevine, Laurel Valley, Hot Springs, Beech Glen Ð pretty much the whole county is or soon will be involved. Now I can only speak for an understanding gleaned from the people I know, who we shall call, in the spirit of acronyms, ACDÕs (Anti-Corporate Development), who are quite numerous in Madison. I know dozens, maybe hundreds. The letter strongly implies, without directly asserting, that everyone who is anti-corporate development are NIMBYÕs. This statement has no referent in my experience. Speaking for them without their permission, I would characterize them as NIABY, Not In AnyoneÕs Backyard. The letter derides this attitude of extending oneÕs backyard to include all your county neighbors, while I would counter that these people are being less selfish, and thinking of the entire community, rather than just themselves. There is the famous saying of the original people here, the Cherokee, that all decisions should be made considering the next seven generations. You plant a fruit tree your grandchildren can harvest. ACDÕs see none of that kind of thinking coming from the corporate developers and the local government entities enabling them.
The letter further cites ÒNIMBYÕs often stand accused of a Drawbridge Mentality (DBM)Ó, effectively describing someone who moves into an area and then opposes any further development, and again, intimating that all ACDÕs are DBMÕs. Of the dozens of people IÕve met, not one fits this description. The unstated presupposition of this letter is that all those who are Anti-Corporate Development are transplants bent on taking land rights away from locals. The fact is, that at least 2/3 of the people I know who are ACD, are people who have had land here for generations. The argument of the letter unfortunately only drives a wedge between locals and transplants that is pure fiction.
Lets look at the letterÕs six points. 1. ÒThere is a severe degradation of the concept of property rights...a personÕs right to dictate land use decisions end at their own property line,Ó and complains of Òzoning laws and government entities, who give non-property owners the power to drive development decisions.Ó The second part of the argument, that somehow there are government entities opposed to development in Madison is unsubstantiated by pretty much every planning board and county commission meeting, where land is rezoned as long as the grading and other specs are written right. The only restrictions put on developers are by state organizations like DENR (Dept. of Environmental and Natural Resources) or the Division of Water Quality. Where is a single instance where the people influenced a development decision, other than making the county follow its own laws and regulations when it is ducking them?
The fallacy of the first part of the statement, that ACDÕs are meddling in what happens behind someoneÕs property line, is that somehow the effect of corporate development stays within the property line. If my neighbor across the road has 100 acres and wants to subdivide, and the land itself will sustain ten homes for families who want to live in Madison County, I may not want it, but itÕs not such a big deal. But if my neighbor sells to a development corporation from Florida, who rezones the land and wants to put 100 units and an airport there, he is no longer operating within his border. And maybe the 100 units are on a steep slope that cannot pass perc test, so a sewage treatment plant needs to be put on the stream I fish in. The stream between us might get polluted, certainly silted up unless the proper safeguards are put in. And since it is now not your neighbor, who actually cares for the stream, but a corporation whose only mandate is for increasing profits for investors, maybe they are cutting corners where they can, because those investors are clamoring for a return, so now you have to call in DENR because the run-off is affecting your land, and DENR is so swamped that they canÕt get there for a month or two. And maybe the little airport the developer wants needs some blasting, and that beautiful mountain you used to look at is now a rock-split crevice, and maybe the developer needs to have a rock crusher going all day to keep up schedules and maintain that profit margin, so you when you are not listening to blasting you are listening to the crusher, and trucks going all day. You are shoveling dust from your deck like snow, but are somehow supposed to be comforted in the belief that this just your neighbor doing what he wants with his land. Yes you may like the fact that there are some locals being employed, and sons of friends are feeding their families while the building is going on, but the vast majority of the money coming in through the purchase of the homes goes to corporate coffers out of state. The money leaves the county. Then when itÕs built after a decade of clamor, you canÕt get out of your driveway with the traffic of 100 extra cars, the trout are gone from the stream, but you are supposed to happy because your land is worth twice as much, but maybe you canÕt afford the taxes. And maybe with the 100 wells next to you your crystal clear spring dries up. Is the corporation going to pay for your well to be dug? Try and find them. And now planes and helicopters are buzzing your roof. So to say that development is only within the borders of the development property is completely unsubstantiated by actuality. Any idea that ACDÕs are out to take the rights of individual property owners away is, again, completely unsubstantiated by any reality IÕve experienced. They are, in fact, concerned with the effects of corporate development outside of their development, that the corporations refuse to be responsible for until forced to.
Point 2, about the boldness of ACDÕs (ÒNIMBYÕsÓ) standing up for rights that they do not have, is merely accusatory and non-specific, so there is nothing to respond to. Exactly what rights do they not have that they are somehow exercising to the detriment of individual property owners?
Point 3: Litigation, or Òcourts as playgrounds for NIMBYÕs.Ó My experience is that judges hate to see frivolous flaunting of the law in their overburdened courtrooms. In fact, they require a credible breech of law in order for a case to proceed. The idea of NIMBYÕs shopping around for a judge sympathetic to their pointless and irresponsible lawsuits is a complete fabrication of the corporate media, who not surprisingly, shill for the corporations. None of the recent lawsuits brought against the county or the corporate developers has involved money. For example, the result of one was to force DENR to do their job and force the developers to install an erosion control plan to match the enormous scope of the development. The developers to their credit have done so, at significant cost to them, but they would not have adequately addressed the erosion and run-off issues unless forced to. Again, the bottom line for corporations is return for investors. There have been no court actions, as far as I know, against individual property owners, for whom the bottom line might more be living peaceably with oneÕs neighbors. In fact, the person spearheading the above-mentioned development neither lives nor has his corporate office in Madison, which again contradicts this myth of a local land owner just doing what he wants on his own land.
Point 4 is that the public Òprocess is frequently hijacked by activists and NIMBYÕs,Ó going against Òthe silent majority.Ó The Òsilent majorityÓ is a convenient group to invoke, since they donÕt exist and you can speak for them as you see fit. Since they donÕt say anything, they canÕt contradict you. There is indeed a public process, but there is no way for a vocal public - majority, minority or otherwise Ð to hijack the decisions because the decisions are made before there is any public discussion. This is why people get frustrated. People want transparency from their elected officials. And when they do show up in large numbers to univocally express their desire, the decisions always go the corporate way. Not one decision has been hijacked by public opinion in the meetings I know of. (Except possibly the infamous attempt to site a nuclear waste dump in Madison, which drew huge crowd to meetings, and proved to be rather unpopular.)
The fifth point is that NIMBYÕs are retirees with enough time on their hands and little else to do with themselves than try to tell their neighbors what to do with their land. In the meetings IÕve been to, at least 90% of the people are there after a day of work, so they are giving up their precious time to support what they believe.
The letter follows here with an excellent point, that people want things and are Òforgetful, or indifferent to where things come from.Ó This is so true. I have only recently learned that most of my electricity is coal-generated, which means that I am party to the mountaintop removal going on in West Virginia and all the effects of slurry on the communities there. And the every time I buy gas at Exxon I am helping them buy off scientists who will state that global warming is simply not happening. I can try to reduce my effect, eat my own and locally-grown food, but I am still within a corporate web. As long as I want to drive and watch dvdÕs I am beholden to profit-mandated corporations.
The last point is about ÒNIMBYism breeds NIMBYÕsÓ, which is like saying this fiction generates more fiction.
The letter ends with ÒItÕs un-American to tell a legitimate land owner that he cannot use his land as he sees fit.Ó I hope I have demonstrated that there is no movement of people in fact doing that, that this is a myth generated by those in favor of unbridled corporate development. There are people who have lived here all their lives, along with concerned transplants, who are alarmed at the effects of these large corporate developments on the surrounding community and their daily lives. These people have no desire about telling an individual what to do with his or her land, on his or her land, and to have them characterized as meddling NIMBYÕs is in my experience and opinion, misleading, unfair, inaccurate and sadly divisive of the Madison residents. While the letter seems to be making a stand for individual property rights, these rights are nowhere under siege, and what the letter is really promoting, are corporate rights disguised as individual rights. I am hoping that the readers can tell the difference.
Most neighbors get along by following ChristÕs injunction to Òdo unto others as you would have them do unto you,Ó while corporate developers tend to follow Joe NamathÕs unfortunate reworking of it, Òdo unto others before you get done unto.Ó
Stephen J. Crimi
Mars Hill/p>
This is a letter to the January 17th Sentinel by Greg Yost. (He has since received an apology from the bicyclist mentioned.
Driving to church Sunday morning, Christmas Eve, my family was jolted from thoughts of Sunday School and Santa Claus by something we hope we wonÕt be seeing again anytime soon. Near the bottom of Murray Mountain we passed two bicycle riders in bright spandex suits pedaling their fancy bikes uphill. Just behind them a third member of their party had stopped and was relieving himself on the side of the road. My wife, two children, and I passed by in disbelief. This weekend warrior couldnÕt even be bothered to get off his bike to go behind a tree in the woods. He was standing astride his bike, on the road, in full view of all passing traffic.
Most bicyclists have better manners and more sense. We just had the bad luck to share our Sunday morning drive with a very inconsiderate and selfish individual. Yet even if such behavior is thankfully uncommon, the attitude that underlies it is not. The following Friday I saw evidence of this when I witnessed yet another one act roadside farce.
This time the stage was set at a neighborÕs house on Puncheon Fork Road. Some melting leftover snow was incentive enough for a four vehicle caravan to stop for an impromptu winter frolic. On the left side of the road three cars had pulled over and ten or twelve adults and teenagers were waging a pitched snowball battle around my neighborÕs barn. Over on the right hand side the remaining car had parked on the drivewayÕs bridge over the creek. Its occupants had passed on the snowball fight and instead had crossed the bridge and were walking around in my neighborÕs front yard. Two of them had cameras out and were snapping pictures of the snow and each other. The whole scene was a circus.
Presumption and a sense of entitlement are what people like these have in common. They view their time here as an entertainment purchase and thus give Madison County all the respect due a video rental. Sensible rules for guestsÕ appropriate behavior are lost or ignored. For visitors like these the real Madison County that we live in doesnÕt exist, and probably neither do we. TheyÕve just come to play with a commodity product called Madison County. If youÕve seen a toy store in the mall pawed and ransacked just before Christmas, then you know what IÕm talking about.
Presumption and a sense of entitlement are what people like these have in common. They view their time here as an entertainment purchase and thus give Madison County all the respect due a video rental. Sensible rules for guestsÕ appropriate behavior are lost or ignored. For visitors like these the real Madison County that we live in doesnÕt exist, and probably neither do we. TheyÕve just come to play with a commodity product called Madison County. If youÕve seen a toy store in the mall pawed and ransacked just before Christmas, then you know what IÕm talking about..
I detest the attitude of those who resign themselves to being robbed. I do not believe that crippling the county with sprawl is progress and I am incensed by the betrayal of MadisonÕs citizens who do honest work each day and deserve a livable home. Tourism and growth must be made to serve the interests of Madison County, not rule it. Scoundrels who profit from choking the life out of our communities treat us with the same contempt as the worst of those into whose hands they would sell us. For the sake of our pride and economic future we must not consent to becoming anyoneÕs cheap toy, much less their latrine.
This is the article, "Developers with a View, and a Conscience" from the Asheville Citizen-Times of October 29th, followed by various responses to it:
WOLF RIDGE - For months, John Kelley has been poring over maps of the Peaks at Wolf Ridge, laying out roads and home sites for the exclusive ridge-top development.Last week, the developer gave would-be brokers and buyers a bird's-eye glimpse with helicopter tours over the 5,000-foot tall peaks and the developments under construction on the mountainside. "For now it looks like a hodgepodge, but we have just one small piece of the overall development. We want to build absolutely pristine, high-end homes," Kelley explained through the headset over the roar of the helicopter rotor. Adjacent to the long-established Wolf Laurel Resort community and country club, Wolf Ridge is slowly being shaped into a series of mountainside villages and neighborhoods that could add about 700 new houses, chalets and condominiums. An airstrip is being cleared across nearby Haw Ridge that will allow residents to land their own small planes. A row of 28 cabins is complete at Scenic Wolf Ridge with another 40 or so under construction. New ski lifts ascend the mountain to more ski runs. A covered heated pool dots an opening down below. New jobs are being created with the new buildings, said Rick Bussey of Scenic Wolf Ridge Resort. "We've got great people working for us. With the ski season coming up, we'll have 500 to 600 people working on the mountain, and next season we'll have 600 to 800. We're putting a lot of local people to work."
Meanwhile, the N.C. Division of Water Quality approved plans for a sewage treatment plant on Puncheon Fork Creek that could serve up to 900 homes. With the permit, the state also required stricter protections for the trout stream. With the new permit, Bussey said, work can start on Scenic Wolf Resort's first 28 condominiums, and sales have been brisk. Scenic Wolf Resort at Wolf Ridge will have about 250 homes and condos along with shops and other amenities, he said. "One of the important things to note is that we are separate developments, but we are all at Wolf Ridge. People ask if we are master-planning together. What we're doing is coordinating so we have some harmony," Bussey said.
Kelley's Ovation Group has the top home sites in elevation and price on Wolf Ridge, with one-acre lots going for $600,000 to $900,000. The West Peaks had already sold about a quarter of the 12 lots before the actual release on Wednesday. Another 29 lots will be released next year on the East Peaks. "We want people to have views out but not views in," Kelley said. Homes will buffered and set below the ridge line where the Mars Hill watershed starts. "Western North Carolina is growing ever denser, but Wolf Laurel has been here for the past 30 years. It made sense to maximize the opportunity on a mountain where there's already been development," said David Mosrie with the Real Estate Center, the exclusive seller's agent for the Peaks. Mosrie said the Peaks promises a more environmentally friendly style of development with covenants and restrictions on what trees can be cut on the sites and how the homes are built. Armin Wessel, a Burnsville-based architect who has designed homes at Mountain Air Country Club and Wolf Laurel, designed the covenants. Ovation Group will start work in the next few weeks on a $2.2 million model home showing off those green-building features.
Down the mountainside, Stephen Martin and his team are still finalizing plans for Breakaway, a village community on about 12 acres. With two houses under construction, Martin said, they are learning from the mountain how best to build. "We believe in environmentally conscious communities," he said. "We're working to do a responsible thing." Other communities on the drawing boards include about 65 acres for single-family homes at Oak Hollow Reserve and Madison Heights, a 100-acre equestrian village with homes and horse trails. Some groups worry about the density of housing on the mountainside with the threat of runoff to the trout streams below. "We're monitoring the situation," said Gracia O'Neill with Clean Water for North Carolina, an environmental watchdog group. The organization, along with the local Laurel Valley Watch, opposed the sewage treatment plant on Puncheon Fork Creek. "There are lot of watch groups in the area who are interested in what we're doing, as well they should," Kelley said. "These environmental groups to their credit have focused a lot of scrutiny on this mountain to make sure that erosion control and runoff are taken care of." Kelley said environmentally sound developments will appeal to home buyers. "The folks you bring up here, you want them to share the beauty. You want to make sure that you're not taking away from that beauty."
Here are a sampling of responses sent to the paper.
Dear Mr. Neal. I have forwarded to you a copy of an email I sent to Joy Franklin requesting an opportunity to respond with a guest column to an article by you in today's Citizen Times. I will not repeat myself here, except to say once again how shocked and disappointed I was by the content and tone of the article, especially the headlines. I realize that you are not the one who writes the headlines, but I must tell you that I found the reporting here disturbing. You must know, or should know, that there has been long and widespread opposition to parts of these projects, not just by "wacko environmentalits," but by many ordinary life-long residents of our county. Over four hundred residents attended the county commissioners' meeting where several parcels of the project were rezoned. An even greater number attended the DNR hearing on the issuing of a waste water treatment plant permit. In both cases, NEARLY ALL in attendance were opposed to the projects as now designed. Our group, Laurel Valley Watch, recently spent two days in court in an action against the airport construction. The developers had 12 acres rezoned to industrial use, but have gone well beyond those 12 acres in their construction. The jury found that grading and cuts and fills for the airport have already been done off the 12 acres. We are presently waiting for the judge to decide what action, if any, he will take to remedy the situation. It was not until the last four paragraphs of your article that you even mentioned any opposition or concern to the projects. Then you only quoted one very brief sentence from Gracia O'Neill and mentioned that our group, Laurel Valley Watch, had opposed the treatment plant. Then, in the next paragraph, you used a self-serving quote from one of the developers, in which he appears to be greatful for the concerns of his neighbors, assuring the readers that he will not be "taking away from that beauty." I can assure you that the developers have not tried to work with their neighbors, but have in fact tried to run roughshod over the county. They are powerful and have lots of money behind them. Rick Bussey came to Wolf Ridge from Charles Taylor's Blue Ridge Savings. I have read the Citizen Times for decades, and feel that the paper's coverage has improved over the years. I have read many, many of your articles, and have found them to be balanced and informative in most instances. This time, however, as I wrote to Joy Franklin, I believe this piece should have been billed as an ad, not news. I would appreciate your taking the time to do a follow-up to this article, and spend time talking to people with differing opinions of Wolf Ridge. I would be happy to meet with you, as would others in Laurel Valley Watch (many of whom live directly below or across from, the project), to discuss the serious issues involved. Thank you for your time and effort. Paul Gurewitz
Greetings....I truly expected more from the staff of the Citizen Times. The article written about the Wolf Ridge Development violates at least a half dozen of your own ethics rules and has so mis-represented the reality of the situation that I would think you all are on the payroll. If you want to report the news...at least have the integrity to be honest and truthful and tell the whole story. If not you are just a pawn in the musings of the corporate consciousness and are worthless as a source of real news. You all should be ashamed of this article!! Dave Hollister Mars Hill
Dear Mr. Neal, I am on the board of Laurel Valley Watch, and I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I will assume that in your heart of hearts, you wanted to do a positive piece on developers who actually cared for the land and the people in the area. Otherwise I cannot figure out how a piece ("Homes With a View - And a Conscience" Sunday, 29 October) that amounts to pure free advertisement and propaganda managed to appear in the Asheville Citizen-Times.
I do understand that these people are slick. At our first community meeting, before LVW was formed, the only one in which the developers made any attempt to discuss their plans with the community (December 2005), the first question we asked Rick Bussey was, "What about this jetport you have advertised on The Lodge brochure?" We began our relationship with this bald-faced lie: "No jets. It will only be 1800 feet. No way it can handle jets." At that very moment Mr. Bussey had an application in with the FAA in Atlanta (I have a copy if you want to see it) for a 3200 foot strip, which has since been extended to 3800 feet, allowed to land 10 jets per month, to be doubled in a year. So to have everything they say ("An airstrip is being cleared across nearby Haw Ridge that will allow residents to land their own small planes.") printed as gospel without contacting us for a possible fact check is disconcerting and more than a little irresponsible. It sounds as if they are just clearing a few trees out of the way on a flat piece of land. In fact, they have torn a mountain in half to do so. We have pictures of the devastation. We would love for you to print them in your follow-up story. Also, a jury in Madison County Court two weeks ago found that they have exceeded their 12 acre industrial zoning in their cut-and-fill operation. We are awaiting a judge's decision on how the jury's finding applies to the law.
You did put in a quote from Gracia O'Neill. Did you ask her how many erosion and water violations these conscious builders have committed? They are listed on the LVW website (www.laurelvalleywatch.com) and come straight from the DENR report on the then-proposed sewage treatment plant (330,000 gallons of treated sewage into a tiny trout stream, more environmental consciousness), in which they recommended against these developers mainly because of their poor environmental track record. We have copies of the report. Did you do any check on the number and type of jobs these developers are claiming to create? The number jumps every time they speak. Are they temporary? Part time? A living wage? Do you wonder why there are ads in every paper every week for servers at The Lodge? Is it because the pay is sub-standard? Do you know that the waitresses who double as cloggers, i.e., they are entertainment, still only get the minimum waitress pay (as of several months ago)? Can you imagine having to hustle as a server, and then hoof it on the dance floor? My knees ache thinking about it.
Here you quote Steve Martin: "We believe in environmentally conscious communities," he said. "We're working to do a responsible thing." Later you quote Mr. Kelley about "environmentally sound developments", and a $2 million home with "green-building features." Nowhere do you ask what these features might be. Do they stick in a compact florescent bulb and - presto - it's a green building! Did you consider getting specifics from them, and contacting local actual green builders to see if they jive? I'm sorry, but this is Reporting 101. They say it and you write it just isn't good enough. Don't you think that a total of over 1300 second and third homes on a steep-sloped ridge abutting the Mars Hill watershed might have some deleterious environmental effect? Did Steve Martin, who is "learning from the mountain," ask it if it enjoyed being ripped apart? Did any of the builders ask the community if they minded listening to a rock crusher going all day every day (except when potential buyers are around)? Do these environmentally conscious builders care about displacing the animals who make this place their home. By their own admission (again, I have the paperwork to prove it), they are building a sewage treatment plant because it is cheaper than other environmentally-friendly alternatives (ask Ms. O'Neill). Did you ask the community if it was concerned about their precious springs drying up from the wells for these 1300 homes? Did you do the math and wonder if the 8 acres of tarmac for the jetstrip, along with the roof acreage from all these homes, might have some run-off erosion problems? Do you realize that they are already being sued for run-off problems at a home that they refuse to address? And more: If they are working so hard to preserve the views, why are they being sued by folk in Wolf Laurel for destroying their views?
I could go on, but one more point. Here's your quote from a realtor, someone with maybe a little prejudice: ' "It made sense to maximize the opportunity on a mountain where there's already been development," said David Mosrie with the Real Estate Center, the exclusive seller's agent for the Peaks.' Did you consult a map to see if this is true. Why do you think people in Laurel Valley, on the other side of the mountain from the existing Wolf Laurel (with whom we have no problem), have been fighting this intrusion by Wolf Ridge et al into their neighborhood for a year? Finally, I refer you the the Code of Ethics for A-CT, something that someone has done a nice job of putting together. I ask you in your heart of hearts to ask yourself if you have followed this code, and if not, what are you going to do to redress the damage that you have done the to Laurel Valley community? I am sad that you did not ask LVW for any real information about these developers before publishing this piece, since, as Mark Twain said, "A lie will get half way around the world before the truth gets it boots on." Sincerely, Steve Crimi, Laurel Valley Watch
Response from the AC-T publisher:
Steve and Dave: I appreciate your correspondence on the Wolf Ridge story we ran last weekend. Steve, thank you for giving us the benefit of the doubt about why we wrote the story and for providing the information you did. Susan Ihne, the Executive Editor, has asked the reporter and his editor to investigate the issues you have raised and do some more reporting. Regards, Jeffrey Green, President and Publisher, Asheville Citizen-Times
Response from Dale Neal:
Dear Steve, In hindsight, you are right and we wish we included more of the controversy surrounding this development. Rest assured, we will continue to do stories on the development, including both sides. Please let us know of any developments with your lawsuits. Sincerely, Dale Neal
Hello Dale, as someone who has been working on the greater development issue and that has seen the development in question, I look forward to future stories about this development that will include more discussion around issues impacting those that live nearby and the environment. Thank you, Norma Ivey
Dear Mr. Neal, I don't see this issue as being summed up as an oversight nor should it be simply considered "a controversy". Let's look at the facts and then report. Let's look at how those developers with a consistantly bad environmental record have greenwashed the situation. Let's appreciate that these environmental oversights have now been reported as "a development with a conscience." What a great marketing strategy. And you all fell for it without checking it out. Do the Busssey's care about the community? No. What constitutes " Homes with a conscience"? I don't have a clue. Does Mr. Bussey? He/they have ignored the entire community as they bulldoze their way to great fortune at the expense of the mountains and people. Did they not think the community would come back with the facts? Did they think their lies would not be rebutted? When you say "stories on the development, including both sides", it seems you implying these are simply people's differing opinions. Consider that their story was cooked up to counter their egregious track record--their "Homes with a conscience" image and the A-CT's reported it as true. Is the Asheville Citizen-Times telling a story or reporting facts? It seems clear to me that these "notices of violation" are facts not controversy, e.g.:
"Breakaway Subdivision/Land Co. LLC has received two Notices of Violation of the State Sediment and Erosion Control Act. One violation issued on January 11th, 2006, was for failure to conduct their project in accordance with the approved sediment and erosion control plan, insufficient sediment control measures, offsite damage to a tributary of Wolf Laurel Branch, and no buffer zone. On March 7th, 2006, Breakaway Subdivision/Land Co. LLC received a second NOV for having no approved plan for ski slope construction, failure to install sufficient sediment control devices, and failure to provide a buffer zone along a tributary to Wolf Laurel Branch (C, Tr). On March 31st, 2006, Breakaway Subdivision/Land Co. LLC received a Notice of Continuing Violation for these same offenses because the violations outlined in the March 7th letter still had not been corrected." Sincerely, Susan Stewart
Mr. Neal, Your article, October 29, ÒHomes with a View Ð and a conscienceÓ surely was a one-sided story. It made for great press for the developers; gee, it was almost a commercial! Why didnÕt you interview one of those Òwatch-groupsÓ Mr. Kelley mentioned for balance in reporting? It is unfair to lump Wolf Laurel with the present day developments now going on in the Upper Laurel Valley community. The current development in this area is unprecedented in its out there, in your face, bigger is better, outright greed. Wolf Laurel has quietly resided beside the other residents of this area for over 30 years. It is a community of homes with rules and regulations to maintain the quality of life people came there to enjoy. Why, you canÕt even cut down a tree without going before a review board. Wolf Laurel, itself, is upset with the new wave of development at its doorstep.
Laurel Valley Watch was formed because local citizens were and still are appalled at the degradation of our valley and mountains by the greed of this new breed of developers. ÒWatchgroupÓ is only part of our mission. Are we to watch while a mountain is cut in half for a jetport? Are we to watch as 300,000 gallons a day of wastewater is dumped into a clear mountain stream? Are we to watch as mountain ridges are denuded of trees and sediment pours into creeks and streams, not to mention peopleÕs yards, to build nearly a thousand 3 and 4-story ÒchaletsÓ for seasonal people to jet in and out for fun? All this at the expense of water, air, trees, animals, people? We are all paying for this rampant excess of greed. Numerous health code violations and environmental abuses have been racked up by some of these developers. Madison CountyÕs slogan is Madison is the jewel of the Blue Ridge. For how long? This is not just a Laurel Valley problem or a Madison County problem. It is a regional issue and calls for all voices to be heard. Please speak to our ÒwatchgroupsÓ to find out the rest of the story. Thank you, Barbara Merrill
Dear Mr. Neal, It was with a heavy heart that I read your words. I have waited until today to comment on your Sunday article on 'Homes With a View and a Conscience', because I have needed some time to collect my thoughts. It is important to me to respond not from a place of anger and betrayal, but from one of concern and compassion. You need to understand that there is a reason why your article seems to have hit a nerve within such a very broad community. Not only in the Laurel Valley, but in every county of Western North Carolina, this is the burning issue of the day. And I might add that it goes even further to the state, national, and international communities. Everywhere, we are seeing the burgeoning effect of radical over-development of pristine lands, and the severe degradation of drinking water. Sometimes it is for mountain top removal as in West Virginia and Kentucky, sometimes it is for gated communities and second and third vanity homes for the wealthy, and sometimes for timber sales. Worldwide, water will be the next resource to be so severely commodified that it will make the oil crisis pale in comparison. Only rarely do we see humble, reasonable, and reverent reciprocity with the land. Overwhelmingly, this is a direct result of population pressure as the planet is asked to host six and one half billion of us. That's a tall order.
It is wise to look at this large picture when considering the development craze in Western North Carolina. Whole systems thinking is called for in our present time of crisis. We in Laurel Valley consider our mandate to be one of gratitude for, and stewardship of, the land that so generously supports and nourishes us. We are guided by a different philosophy of caring for the land, caring for the peoples of the land (and that includes all of the animals who live on the land), and sharing of the surplus goods of the land. We do not see the land as a real estate commodity to make millions of dollars from. So what you might be witnessing here is a clash of philosophies. You would do your readers so much more of a service if you were to investigate the many movements in Western North Carolina that are truly striving to find the answers to the pressing questions of "how do we share the natural resources we have been gifted with while not eradicating them, how do we build in true concert with the Earth, what would it look like if we took very seriously the charge to build in a "green" manner, how could we leave a place in better order than it was in when we found it, how could we enhance the natural beauty rather than exploit it, how could we support the wild animals who we share our space with rather than destroying their habitat, how can we be better neighbors, what more can we give to our community rather than what more can we get from it?"
I see the role of The Asheville Citizen Times as a very sacred charge of calling on the people to rise to their highest level of community functioning and interaction. You are in the position of being able to reach thousands of citizens to carry a message of cooperation. The reason why we were so disappointed in your article was that it glorified the opposite qualities of excessive wealth and narcissism. It was very painful to read that message going out to thousands, perpetuating the desire for more than one can afford, and more than the mountain can afford to give. I was so very grateful to receive your e-mail and to hear you express a desire to do more justice to this issue. You have my respect for that. I hope you have contacted our lawyer, Gary Davis, to receive more input from his perspective. Thank you so much for your cooperation and understanding. Blessings, Krys Crimi, Laurel Valley Watch, Philosophy Farm
The Wolves of Madison County By Milton Ready
Oral history has it that Hershel PorshiaÕs grandfather, an emigrant from France, killed the last wolf in Madison County more than a century ago near Big Bald Mountain. Today, those mistaken for wolves probably constitute nothing more than an interbreeding with dogs left in the wild, their lupine cries still haunting much of the deeper coves, ridges, and valleys of the mountains. Wolves in Madison County and the mountains now have become as extinct as the self-sufficient farmer and his loyal, functional family. Their reputations as predators and as killers of cattle and animals exaggerated as much by fiction as folklore, wolves fell victim not only to hunters but also to traps, snares, and poisoned animals left for them to devour. Wolf Pit Road in Madison County reminds us of one such baited trap. Today, wolves exist, like so many elms, chestnuts, pigeons, buffalo, beaver, and elk as place names and icons and not as magnificent trees and commonplace animals who once could be found almost anywhere in the mountains. In truth, wolves and bears now abound in the mountains not as savage, bestial animals reminiscent of a frontier past but as symbols of a pristine, tamed, rustic paradise newly ÒdiscoveredÓ in Madison County and throughout western North Carolina. Their images and names dot exit signs on freeways and mountains, now part of the lure of a wild that no longer exists. In the resort of Wolf Laurel, a wolf baying at a quarter moon greets visitors while at Wolf Ridge, a development with expensive Lincoln log homes bolted to the side of a treeless mountain, representations of a hunting lodge where tourists enjoy ribs and steaks but little else natural now dominate the empty ridge top. Soon, visitors can fly onto the mountain without seeing any of the Madison County countryside except that which has been artificially manicured and landscaped for their enjoyment. As one Floridian observed about the mountains of western North Carolina, Òyes, this is one of the most scenic and beautiful places IÕve seen, but all the trees get in the wayÓ. Not much longer. Several real estate companies, all with a wolf or bear in their names and logos, now eagerly sell such rustic dreams, vistas, and Òmountain lifestylesÓ to those from outside the region. These are the new wolves of Madison County, human predators much more dangerous, rapine, and plundering than their iconic ancestors.
Like many mountain counties, Madison has come to represent what one travel advisor calls a Òperfect confluenceÓ of time and place, a coming together of circumstances that makes this part of the south, at least for a few years, a developerÕs dream and a residentÕs nightmare. Rising insurance costs along the coast combined with the threat of even worse hurricanes in the coming years, a baby boomer generation now facing retirement and having money for pricey second-homes, a perceived need for more security in a post 9/11 world, the affluence of the last two decades, and the relatively unspoiled ridge tops of Appalachian counties like Madison have all come together to produce this quirk in time and place. The fearsome baying of wolves on tops of mountains endangering livestock now has been replaced by the sound of grinding gravel trucks and angry chainsaws giving us all fair warning of these new cravings and hungers. So discouraging is the current picture that perhaps the bulldozer and not the atomic bomb or the automobile might turn out to be the most destructive invention of the last century. We should all beware. Madison County has seen such a convergence before, once in the 1880s with the coming of loggers and timber companies and again in the period from 1900 to 1929 when resorts and lodges attracted those seeking a rustic Eden and curative hot springs here in the mountains. Then, you actually could hunt bears and other animals in the wild, at least for sport and adventure. Now you ÒlodgeÓ and ÒresortÓ in Madison County seeking not the strenuous outdoors life but instead the peace and harmony that only an upscale or a gated community offers. The barriers protect against not savage animals and terrorists but instead the troubles and travails of an outside world. When you stumble upon the ruins of a nineteenth-century inn like the Buck House or the outlines of the old Hot Springs hotel in the mountains, you almost can envision the dreams and conceits of the past. Who knows? Perhaps Mountain Air and Wolf Ridge will one day remind us of the delusions of the present.
The packs of human wolves now called corporate developers are drawn once more to the mountain ridge tops here and also in Boone, Cashiers, Highlands, and Burnsville do not look or sound like predators but instead very much like everyday good olÕ boys like the rest of us if only weÕll cooperate. In reality, they have the appearance of a seductive local Circes leading us all to our doom while promising feel-good things like better jobs and progress. Who could possibly be against those? Most often, they dress like us in sheepish overalls and quite ordinary work clothes even as they beguile unsophisticated commissioners, rubber stamp zoning boards, passive voters, and innocent residents while howling against those who oppose them. In the end, they will devour not only the pristine tops of mountains but also a culture and lifestyle that has existed here in Madison County and the surrounding mountains for a century. Gone will be the trout streams, tree-topped ridges, small, unspoiled Appalachian river valleys and creeks, quaint homes, farms, and homesteads, and, along with them, the sense of place, community, and family that has marked Madison County as different from its urban neighbors. In its place, we will have public housing for the rich at 4,000 feet. In the past, the threat of wolves at the door has haunted western minds and mythology since the dark ages. Now it has become a clichŽd figure of speech we perhaps should once again use to remind us that we need to protect a coveted way of life that not only is threatened but also disappearing here in the mountains. Still, we cry wolf at any development when only a few threaten and menace us. Most, like their iconic ancestors, would like to share the environment and its resources with us, live in a common habitat, and, indeed, obey rules and codes, both natural and written, governing land use, storm water runoff, building on ridge tops, public safety and health, and the general welfare of those who live around them. They understand that all of us, despite our pretensions and ÒplannedÓ communities, owe our existence to a thin six to ten inch layer of topsoil, a few trees, and the fact that it rains a lot. Nonetheless, it is time to cry wolf in Madison County and the mountains at the scale and nature of many developments as well as at the actions of our own elected officials. Sadly, the most terrifying of all is that we have to fight our own government and its officials to save our environment and way of life before it is too late.
Dear Mr. Neal, I'm not sure how you got saddled with reporting on a contentious, ritzy development in our precious mountains, but the article you wrote in the Sunday paper (10/29/06) had me laughing for its unbelievability. Normally, I'm wincing in pain when I read about these spectacular VIEW developments for the super-rich, but this time it was incredulity that brought a smile instead. The only "conscience" these developers have is: How can I make oodles of money out of real estate without encountering any obstacles to my plan? Well, they've decided that throwing in words like "green" and "environmentally sound" can smooth over objections in this area. A true environmentally conscious person goes into development with the first priority being: How can I build while disturbing the environment the least amount? I can assure you that flat-topping a mountain in order to put in an airstrip (for planes of ANY size) does not meet that criterion! To make amends for this fraudulent article, perhaps you'd like to seek out some true "green builders" and ask them about the "get-rich-quick" development that is going on in our area these days. Sincerely, A. A. Lloyd, Asheville
Dear Mr. Neal and All, I wholeheartedly support what Krys and Steve are saying. I have called Western NC my home since I was born. And after 30 years of living here, I have seen some changes, especially in Madison County. It's a special place, still very pristine and we'd all like to keep it that way. I am writing you all because I want to bring in another element to the topic of development. I am starting a business in Asheville that will be selling natural building materials. I will have a bookstore selling books that are very "how-to" and step by step for green building and development. Also, I will be reaching the public with monthly meetings and discussions about different aspects of green building and the latest technologies. nyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to the building world knows that "green" and LEED certified is moving up in popularity by leaps and bounds over traditional building. It is proven that more people are developing chemical sensitivities with the overload to our systems from environmental toxins and pollutants. These types of people respond favorably to 'green' development and buildings, since it is the only way they can live comfortably, without getting sick. My mission follows the logic that if development is inevitable, especially in the mountains I grew up in, that at least it can be done with minimal impact and with environmentally friendly and recycled materials. Please contact me if you want to write a story on my business or for more information. 828-319-0222 Thank you, Jennifer Woodruff, Owner, Build it Naturally
Letter by Dr. Joe Morgan of Marshall, October 4th Express.
Protecting Madison's Soul
What's at stake is the heart and soul of Madison County for years to come. It represents the changing of the guard in the county. Older families have been alienated by decades of shabby treatment by county officials who see their roles threatened by change. Family, religion and isolation play a big role in Madison County.
Nearby counties, such as Buncombe and Haywood, [and their] various organizations contribute to the debate and have a voice in the process of real representation in fights over development. The Planning Board in Madison County is a force, because the verdict has already been made Ð most often behind closed doors! This incited Laurel Valley Watch into political activism. County commissioners have used "illusion of due process" in approving rezoning requests of B&E Ventures and their investors from residential and agricultural to resort and commercial.
There are too many questions about what type of businesses will be put on Laurel Valley Road near the Tennessee state line, where there is no current business. Is an airport to be located at Wolf Laurel without public discussion? Imagine a county without a comprehensive development plan! Heroes to the developers?
On Nov. 7, we must replace current commissioners who have not listened to the people.Slow development and farm preservation is needed in Madison County. We also need to work together [for] mountain-ridge-development laws Ð enforced Ð for the betterment of our area. Locals need to preserve their way of life; they were here first! We need protective zoning and low housing density. Let's work to preserve our rural character.
Remember that development increases the cost of living and will not necessarily benefit Madison County's budget by providing a tax base. We've heard so much about this! Too much development destroys the environment and the locals' way of life. Financial interests motivate developers. Madison County must continue to be a desirable place to live and work. Growth must entail the inevitability of gradualness. We must protect the future of this fine county of Madison.
Letter by Barbara Merrill in the August 9th Sentinel.
I was glad to see another citizen puzzled and frustrated over ÒCommissioners Reverse Position on Tax CollectionÓ (August 2 Sentinel Letters from Readers regarding story July 19 Sentinel).
My question is:Ê What were those three commissioners thinking?Ê On May 19, and then again on July 19, the News Record published 2 single-spaced pages of delinquent properties.Ê Explain to me how this is a rational decision when our school system so desperately needs funds and three commissioners turn down free help?Ê Commissioner Dyatt Smathers, who originally proposed Mr. BriggsÕs help, said 'My goal and objective was to have everyone pay their fair share of the taxes.' Ê Amen Mr. Smathers.Ê He also said, 'IÕm deeply disappointed' (in the subsequent reversal).Ê IÕm more than disappointed that these three commissioners are so blatantly hypocritical.Ê They say one thing and do another.Ê They keep saying they love our older folks and our children.Ê Then they turn down free help for needed funds to help our county do the right thing by all who are in need.
Madison CountyÕs collection rate is already below the state average.Ê We need to be more aggressive here.Ê Most of us pay our taxes.Ê Maybe some are unpaid because of hardship, but a study of the two pages of overdue taxes shows many corporations, LLCÕs, mortgage companies and businesses delinquent to the tune of over $27,000.Ê How about starting with those properties, maybe adding out of state addresses and then the rest in most owed order?Ê Maybe the News Record could move the list to the front page on a regular basis?Ê Maybe print the list in bigger typeface?Ê And why havenÕt our commissioners instructed the county attorney to begin tax lien sales?Ê Our older folks lose out; our children lose out; we all lose out if we do nothing.
Letter by Krys Crimi in the 2 August Sentinel and Mountain Xpress:
On August 3rd at 7pm, at Moore Auditorium, in Mars Hill, a hearing has been granted by the North Carolina Division of Water Quality for two proposed sewage treatment plants on Puncheon Fork Stream, and wetlands near the new exit from Route 26. Together they would dump, on a daily basis, over 300,000 gallons of treated sewage into those delicate bodies of water
It astonishes me, and it should astonish you, that hundreds of citizens of Madison County find it necessary to gather and discuss whether it is okay to dump water that has been defecated in, into a pristine, clear water stream. This astonishes me, and it is humiliating, and it is heartbreaking.
How do we have the nerve to tell our children, our beautiful shining ones, that our creative thinking capacity is so collectively dull, that our most creative solution for a shrinking economy is to sell off their farmlands and their homes to radical developers who freely admit that this is their best plan?
This is the warning sign of a failed system. And itÕs blinking red. Now, for the second time in six months, the actions of these radical developers, B&E Ventures, have elicited such a dramatic response. And again, it is the system blinking red. So pay close attention. ThereÕs something happening here.
The citizens of Madison County are realizing that it is up to them to lead the leaders. After all, it is they who will be drinking, or not drinking, healthy water, and seeing their mountains ripped to shreds.
You cannot consider water to be healthy when it has been shat in and then scrubbed. You cannot. It is not healthy for humans, nor is it healthy for the animals who happen to need it for their sustenance. We care about them, and realize that what happens to them first, happens to us next. We can think that far.
Whole-systems thinking is called for in a situation like this. We all know that none of this would be happening were it not for the need to sell land to pay taxes, so we do recognize the deeper causes of why we have been granted a hearing, and although it must be addressed separately, it needs to be acknowledged.
Worldwide, water is the next resource that wars will be fought over. What sane, intelligent community would willingly allow its most precious element be desecrated and sold off to profiteers? There is simply no reasonable explanation for it. It is not okay to defecate in water, treat it, and then put that water into a trout stream. That is not okay. That is a radical act, a desperate act, and it is not okay.
If state and county officials personally would not be willing to drink water directly from that sewage pipe, then in all good conscience, they must vote no on this permit.
It is not okay, it is not okay, it is simply not okay.
THE RIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
A response to Patrik JonssonÕs terribly misleading article of 6.20.06. Submitted by Dr. Deborah Louis on behalf of Laurel Valley Watch, Homestead Community Land Trust, and Tri-County Microenterprise Development Association
I have always considered CSM to be one of the most reliable and even-handed sources of informed news and commentary available to U.S. readers, a Òbest practicesÓ model of balanced reporting, journalistic integrity and social conscience. I subscribe to your regular online terrorism and ethics alerts, and routinely refer students and colleagues to your articles on current research and events. I was therefore most disappointed in the recent article by Patrik Jonsson focusing on ÒridgetopÓ development in Madison County, Western North Carolina. The piece was not only skewed in respect to the viewpoints represented, it left the reader with a wholly mistaken impression of the issues and circumstances we are confronting as communities here and elsewhere across the region. (And by the way, weÕre in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not the SmokysÑthose are some two hours southwest of here!)
Although given the names and contact information of several local land use and environmental professionals and community leaders, and the presence of several large and small academic institutions in the area, Mr. Jonsson chose to consult and quote Òa sociologist at Boston College,Ó one Charlie Derber, who offers the (assumed) expert opinion that our area Òhas an eroding economic system and the only choice is to take in things that are going to change the environment and change the culture.Ó Charlie has apparently not done his homework--why bother when itÕs so much easier to trivialize us Òlocal folkÓ as a bunch of poor ignorant hicks and hillbillies who donÕt know whatÕs good for us and fail to recognize the inevitability of being swallowed up and/or ground to dust in the inexorable wake of modernity? Lordy yes, hicks and hillbillies many of us be and proud of it! Poor and ignorant? Not mostly. I live in the Laurel Valley, the neighborhood under most immediate assault by the ÒWolf LaurelÓ speculators-developers, B&E Ventures, which operates in tandem with 30-some-odd LLCs weÕve been able to identify so far. My neighbors are a diverse assortment of farmers, ranchers, police officers, firefighters, bookkeepers, college professors, building contractors, artists, writers, retirees, preachers, young families, big families, single parents, law clerks, decorated veterans, and auto mechanics. Two of my neighbors work at the local Mars Hill Retirement Home, another works for the Department of Transportation, and yet another for the U.S. Forestry Service.
Certainly, like the rest of the continental United States Madison County has bid farewell to the handful of small manufacturing plants that used to be here, but this never constituted the Òeconomic baseÓ of Madison County to begin with! What are ÒerodingÓ (both literally and figuratively) are the land and natural resources on which our present and future livelihoods and well-being depend, not as a result of some relentless historical or market forces impervious to human intercession, but as a direct result of the ÒdevelopmentÓ activities of B&E and the public officials who have smoothed the way for them over the past handful of years.
About those environmental issuesÉWhile ridgetop construction has been a serious issue for some time, and one that is finally receiving the policy attention it merits, it is not the only issue or, at base, even the most important issue in respect to areas like Madison County. Raising it, however, as local officials purporting to be ÒsympatheticÓ with community concerns keep doing, neatly deflects attention from some of the more fundamental flaws in governance that result in ridgetop carnage and the ill-advised and unsightly structures being erected in its wake. Paired with the popular local falsehood ÒOh but we need ridgetop regulation and until we get it thereÕs nothing we can doÓ are similarly plaintive cries regarding inadequate protections for wetlands and a host of other gaps in current environmental and land use law. While task forces and focus groups to address what isnÕt there are being organized, with a promise of several years to come before the products of their labors are put in place, outfits like B&E continue to render irreparable damage to the countryside unabated, the least of which is ridgetop construction! Proposals to impose a moratorium (of more than a few weeks!) on development while such deliberations take place are of course met with threats of court suits for lost booty.
What else is at issue here? The current level of B&E construction activity is already jeopardizing clean springs and streams that are the headwaters for the trout fishing industry across northern Madison County, the watershed for the entire town of Mars Hill some ten miles away, and the sole (heretofore ample) source of water for Valley residents, livestock and crops. Residents are seeing muddy creeks for the first time in local recollection, and water tables have already receded due to the gradual growth of population over the past twenty years and massive utilization of water for the resortÕs artificial snow (and they are building a second slope!). B&E is now proposing the construction of two sewage treatment plants to service an additional 900 condos and a hotel, the larger of which is expected to discharge 300,000 gallons of treated (as in, chemical-laden) waste per day into one of the two streams flowing into Big Laurel Creek, which traverses the county, joins Shelton Laurel Creek just east of Hot Springs to form the Laurel River, which flows into the French Broad just south of the Appalachian Trail. The public hearing for local approval of this facility, which is reported to have already obtained ÒpreliminaryÓ approval from the state (we wonder if any state inspectors actually came and looked at where they intend to put it!), is scheduled for August 3.
The LodgeÑthe three story restaurant structure for which the ridgetop was flattened, that overlooks the bolted-in monstrosities noted in Mr. JonssonÕs articleÑhas recently reopened after being shut down for several months for failing to have its septic system inspected prior to paving it over for parking, and failing to install a sprinkler system as required by law. The gas station recently constructed at the Interstate on/off ramps was also closed and fined for septic and other health code violations. (These and other violations would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the efforts of Laurel Valley Watch, the association of Valley residents and supporters which was formed to be a collective voice in defense of our mountain habitat!) In the recent re-zoning of the area around the interchange now owned by B&E, permission was granted for commercial development along rural Laurel Valley Road, despite the proximity of State Rte. 23 from which it turns off, which is in view of I-26 and an appropriate, accessible and logical location for such activity. Interestingly, the County Commissioners, at their own initiative, extracted from its approval one portion of the tract for which commercial zoning was being requested, coincidentally adjacent to the home and property of the Commission Chair.
Aside from the sewage treatment plant, proposed overdevelopment contingent on its approval and myriad subdivision issues stemming from the recent ÒspotÓ re-zoning of several B&E properties scattered through the Valley to Residential/Resort, is the looming prospect of a jetport with a 4,000-ft runway breaching the ridge between the resort and the valley and at a higher elevation than valley farmland and the Mars Hill reservoir. Preliminary grading (with questionable permits and several other legal issues) has already Òsludged outÓ one adjacent farm. On the eve of appealing to the courts for an injunction prohibiting further site work until the legal issues could be resolved, the County Commission went into Òclosed sessionÓ and, without the required due process for zoning changes, amended the record in which they had incorrectly zoned the site, thereby invalidating the primary legal basis for our request. Meanwhile, where is the FAA? The Army Corps of Engineers? Not only is irreversible environmental damage at issue here, but the ability of the area to absorb 900+ residences and a large hotel (on top of several hundred homes proposed for other subdivisions), accessible only via one two-lane twisty mountain road to be extended through a narrow tunnel under the runway to reach the home and hotel sites with approximately twice the population of Mars Hill, the nearest town! Passenger cars can barely get by with the logging and construction traffic just between the main highway and The LodgeÑhow can we expect emergency vehicles to fare? Can the water table afford to lose the stormwater runoff for that many buildings? How will our healthy, happy horses, donkeys, goats and cattle fare with the noise and fuel emissions from a continuous stream of private jets and commercial shuttles overhead?
And the biggest question of all, at least to my mind: the resort has over 2,000 contiguous acres of its own to build on, and several thousand more across the state line in Tennessee--why does it have to metastasize across our happy valley in the first place? If B&E actually intends to do what it says on the other subdivision tracts, it wouldnÕt have needed the zoning changed. These are people with a history of lying, misrepresentation, cutting corners, violating health and building codes, and unabashedly ignoring permit requirements with a ÒWhat the hell, weÕll make tons more money than fines will cost us if anybody bothers to look in the first placeÓ attitude. These are people who employ thugs and fire gays. How do they keep getting permits and approvals?
About those zoning lawsÉContrary to the impression evoked by Mr. JonssonÕs article, Madison County has a model, unusually progressive Land Use and Zoning Ordinance modeled after the Yancey County ordinance next door (home of the equally nefarious Mountain Air development mentioned by Mr. Jonsson, which by the way had a small plane skitter off their runway and crash last week). Yancey was the first rural county in the region to develop and enact such an ordinance, and Madison was second. It was the product of a great deal of community input, insight, and advocacy in the early 1970s, and has been amended since to include watershed, communication towers, and sign control rules. Far from the result of Òlax zoning lawsÓ as one of Mr. Jonsson's "experts" asserts, ridgetop and other destructive trends in the local development landscape can be directly attributed to intermittent and selective enforcement and peculiar interpretations of the laws that are there. The Zoning Map, which is the key to the reality of the Zoning Ordinance, is four years overdue for completion, and the county employs a single individual to serve as zoning officer and building code inspector in the midst of a development boom. Although required by state law, Madison County has yet to even begin framing a Comprehensive Plan.
The opening section of the Land Use Ordinance states: ÒÉfor the purpose of promoting the public health, safety, morals and general welfare; promoting the orderly development of the county; lessening congestion on the roads and streets; securing safety from fire, panic, and other dangers; providing adequate light and air; preventing the overcrowding of land; avoiding undue concentration of population; and facilitating the adequate provision of transportation, water, sewerage, schools, parks, and other requirements, all in accordance with a well considered comprehensive plan.Ó Converting a patchwork of large tracts of farmland across the Laurel Valley from Residential/Agricultural to Residential/Resort zoning in which permitted uses include multi-family structures, mobile homes, trailer parks, RV parks, Òrecreational buildings,Ó and souvenir and bait shops, converting a pleasant country road from Residential/Agricultural to Commercial, and churning out jetport and major subdivision approvals on the basis of no firm plans or credible impact assessments fall considerably short of this mark, regardless of whether adequate ridgetop construction regulations are in place!
Meanwhile, the heavy construction and double logging trucks start grinding their way past my house at 5:30am, six days a week. They used to grind by on Sunday, too, but I guess somebody with some clout put a stop to that. Most of them are grossly over the weight limit for the old one-lane bridge at the bottom of the road, but we canÕt get any law enforcement entity to stop and cite them.
About those economic benefitsÉThe kids around here play soccer and baseball and videogames and do chores and ride bikes and belong to the local 4H and have part time jobs to pay for cell phones and pizza. None of us makes much money, but we make enough to live independently and healthfully with an abundant supply of clear, fresh water from our springs, trout, bass, and brim from our streams, venison and turkey from our woods, organic produce from our gardens, fresh eggs direct from free-ranging chickens, low cost heating fuel and electricity, and the spiritual peace and everchanging beauty of the mountainsides. We may not be able to see our neighbors, but we know theyÕre there. We do indeed have an abiding and tenacious respect for each otherÕs privacy, but we also know that a helping hand is there when we need it and weÕre always prepared to offer our own when others are in need.
Those of us who werenÕt born and raised here to begin with made a conscious decision five or ten or thirty years ago that this is the kind of life we want, as opposed to the traffic, chemicals, fumes, noise, crowding, stress, hurry, ugliness, crime, artificiality, meanspiritedness and loss of connection that comes with life in the cities and suburbs of Metro USA. We invested our working lives and whatever fruits we have derived from them wholly and completely in carving out what we consider to be a good life here, where it has, up to now, continued to be possible, unlike most other places around the country. Those who were born and raised here and chose to stay, or left for greener economic pastures elsewhere and have returned, have seen what rapid, uncontrolled growth has done to the landscape and communities as closeby as Buncombe (Asheville) and Watauga (Boone) Counties and as distant as Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Arizona, and New Jersey. Some of us are simply too old to successfully start over elsewhere, and the rest of us would rather not, thank you. What B&E with the blessing of our County Commissioners and their appointees prefer, for THEIR benefit and that of their Miami, Atlanta and Chicago Òinvestors,Ó is for us to trade in the independent, viable sources of income we have which in fact support us and our families, for minimum wage jobs in their restaurants, motels, gas stations, and condo and airport maintenance crews which couldnÕt support a family no matter how frugally it lives. The idea that this brand of commercial development will produce Òbusiness opportunitiesÓ for current residents is ludicrous. It will indeed produce business opportunities, but for people in and from other places with big capital to invest and faithful minions to send in to extract hefty profits AT THE EXPENSE OF local residents who will either be pushed out altogether or forced into low-wage, non-benefited, insecure jobs in new ÒenterprisesÓ which are owned by other people and turn our lovely country byways into clogged capillaries between burgeoning strip malls, video arcades and pricy boutiques.
So, what are all these Òeconomic benefitsÓ B&E and the officials who have handed them the keys to the kingdom keep talking aboutÑall that Òmoney being brought into the countyÓ by the developer-speculators? Well, for starters there are the Ò450 jobsÓ Rick Bussey keeps claiming whenever he petitions the County Commission or Planning Board for permission for yet another ill-advised but personally lucrative B&E scheme. For the most part these are guys in pickup trucks, some of whom are but most of whom arenÕt local residents, some of whom are but most of whom arenÕt skilled building trades contractors, who are hired on to do pieces of the site and construction work involved in B&E projects. This is temporary contract workÑthat is, not a permanent part of the economic landscapeÑwhich could just as easily be derived from sound, contributive building projects as from the scurrilous B&E pillage of our community. B&E and their supporters also count up what theyÕve paid a handful of owners for their property as Òmoney into the countyÓ as well as wait staff jobs at The Lodge and their routine business expenses, little of which is spent here. B&EÕs offices are located in neighboring Buncombe, and the firm owes over $37,000 in back taxes for property owned in Madison!
Do we need jobs and business opportunities? Of course we do. We needÑand should be inviting and supportingÑthe kinds of jobs and opportunities that will in fact raise the overall standard of living of local residents (old and new) over time rather than replacing the current population with a more affluent one and destroying the very resources that make this an attractive and healthy place to live and one that everyday working people and retirees and veterans on fixed incomes can afford. Like the midwestern town that built houses for small businesspeople who would relocate there, and the one that offered tax breaks to woman-owned businesses, we would do well to advertise for and welcome small organic farmers and ranchers, artists and crafters, family-owned manufacturing and service enterprises, and small-scale nonprofit, affordable, environmentally-friendly housing development. We have the human and natural resources to thrive for generations to comeÑif we can sustain the courage and political will to steward both towards this end.
About those local officialsÉTheoretically, this is where our duly elected representatives, otherwise known as Òlocal government,Ó come in, to mediate among these competing and/or conflicting interests with due diligence and deliberation, in the larger present and future public interest of the community as a whole in fulfillment of their legal obligations and the moral obligation articulated in their sworn oaths of office. Most fundamentally, their charge is, as the executive branch of local government, to enforce the lawÑand in the history and culture of U.S. jurisprudence, this pertains to both its letter and its intent. This is not, however, what goes on in Madison County.
In a Planning Board hearing on one of the proposed zoning changes, chairman Joseph Clark explained to us that Òby lawÓ the Board must believe whatever an applicant says. If it turns out later that they didnÕt do what they said they would do, or didnÕt follow the rules in implementing the proposed project, well then the appropriate regulatory agencies will step in with penalties and fines, and anyone who suffers any damage could sue them. It is not, he asserted, within the scope of the Planning BoardÕs responsibility or capability to try to Òsecond guessÓ the veracity or sincerity of an applicantÕs claims, nor is there a legal basis to do so. Essentially, if what the applicant says (despite any evidence or precedents to the contrary) falls within the allowable parameters of the Zoning and Land Use Ordinance, the Planning Board Òhas no choiceÓ but to approve the application. This curious snippet of Òlegal reasoningÓ was no doubt the advice of the present County Attorney, who serves as counsel to (and frequent de facto chairperson of) the County Commission, all three Town Councils (although the Town of Marshall fired him at one point but quickly hired him back without comment or fanfare), the Planning Board, the Economic Development Commission, B&E Ventures, and other developers who are disproportionately successful in obtaining permits and approvals. He is hired by the County Commissioners. He is also the Chair of the State Election Board. While a steady stream of questions about multiple conflicts of interest flow between Madison County and the Ethics Committee of the State Bar Association, to our knowledge there has yet to be a serious inquiry into these practices.
This is a place with a history of grave repercussions for political opposition, and a reputation for serious hanky-panky at the polls. While the present appears to be a transitional period with pressure for modernization, professionalism and integrity in local governance unparalleled in preceding eras, the fear factor continues to inhibit widespread mobilization for change. Not only are many area residents dependent on the resort, The Lodge, and B&E for work, low-wage and occasional as it may be, vocal opponents of the status quo are likely to receive threatening phone calls in the middle of the night, or have their homes ÒinexplicablyÓ burned to the ground. Congressman Charles Taylor has a well-documented financial interest in the resort and B&E, and State Attorney General Ray Cooper responds to appeals for help by saying that zoning is a Òlocal issue,Ó not in the purview of his office. That may be so, but this reaches well beyond ÒzoningÓ to suggestions of malfeasance in public office and failure of county government to fulfill the charter obligations which permit Madison County to exist as a governing jurisdiction under the State Constitution, which are indeed a direct responsibility of that office! Among those who refuse to be intimidated (ÒI hope one of those bums does set foot on my property up to some kinda no-good, heÕll get a butt full oÕ buckshot Itellyouwhat!Ó) thereÕs still a feeling of helplessness in the face of an entrenched patronage system which has constituted Òbusiness as usualÓ for so long it seems invincible.
So, when people tell us ÒWell, just vote all those people out and get new officials in there!Ó this is not as easy or straightforward as it might seem. WeÕre looking at the kind of prolonged grassroots effort communities in the South went through in the early 1960s to secure voting rights for African-Americans! However, despite personal risk and profound skepticism, growing numbers of local voters are overtly seeking alternative candidates and showing up at public hearings to voice their opposition to the development decisions being made with reference to neither the overall well-being of the community over time nor to the rules and principles set forth in our local codes. This, of course, has prompted incumbents to attempt to woo us back by seeming to be ÒresponsiveÓ to the now continuous outpouring of land use and development concerns (ÒOh yeah, letÕs study ridgetop construction for a whileÓ) as well as other issues now spilling over into the public forum as a result of this momentum, such as county school and social service employees who donÕt meet state credentialing standards, failure to make any attempt to collect unpaid property taxes (currently ÒforgivenÓ after ten years!), and proposals to transport nuclear wastes through the county by rail and/or road, and to build a huge prison that contracts the incarceration of offenders from other jurisdictions near and far.
Meanwhile, fighting the good fight is expensive! Laurel Valley Watch has several appeals and court suits in progress to rescind the re-zoning and subdivision approval decisions of this past year and to stop jetport and sewage treatment plant construction, at least until reasonable, sustainable plans can be worked out and environmental and economic impacts thoroughly assessed. We can look forward to positive outcomes if we can see the legal action throughÑhowever, B&E has big money and we donÕt. This kind of protracted effort costs, even with a substantial portion of donated legal assistance and a committed, talented volunteer network. Community outreach to keep everyone informed of whatÕs going on costs too, as does political organizing, especially in a violent and hostile environment. WeÕd love to hear from anybody with an in to Warren Buffet. Or Cher. Or Ben & Jerry. Where are the wealthy benefactors for OUR side, who would enable US to buy up these tracts of land as they become available and preserve them for humanscale, sustainable, integrated, affordable development that retains the peace, beauty and ecological balance of the terrain? Why are there always plenty of rich people hellbent on getting richer by destroying our homes and livelihoods, whether by strip mining, clear-cutting, toxic chemical production, big-box commercial installations or seas of condos from ridge to ridge?
About those choicesÉWe do not have to compromise either the environment or our mountain ÒstewardshipÓ values for the sake of economic survival or expansion of economic opportunities for local residents and those who would like to settle here to become part of the fabric of community life. We do have to choose between the bank accounts of a few and the long-term security, health and well-being of the many, and between the hard work of building a shared vision of a sustainable future and the far easier path of indifference and capitulation to the forces of arrogance and greed. Madison County and many of the other rural counties of Western North Carolina enjoy a precious legacy of clean water, biodiversity, and a unique and vibrant living cultural heritage. Many of us are firmly dedicated to the proposition that with careful planning, good management, and a good measure of faith and ingenuity itÕs not too late to keep it that way.
Deborah Louis is a veteran public interest advocate, an independent planning and policy consultant for community nonprofits, small-small businesses, and the public sector, a long-term zoning and land use specialist, and a professor of politics, sociology and womenÕs studies at the University of South Carolina Upstate. She works from her home at Windy Gap, on the eastern end of the Laurel Valley.
Laurel Valley Watch (www.laurelvalleywatch.org) is an association of neighbors in the Laurel Valley and across Madison County committed to monitoring land use and construction trends and proposals and advocating responsible, sustainable, humanscale, environmentally-friendly development that preserves the families, land, livelihoods and cultural heritage of the Southern Appalachian Highlands.
The Homestead Community Land Trust seeks to acquire property by purchase and donation to remove it from the commercial marketplace, preserve agricultural and other low impact uses and wilderness ecology, enable families to stay on farms escalating taxes would otherwise force them to abandon, and utilize 10% for public interest development to meet community needs such as affordable housing, retirement cooperatives, and small cooperative shops and studios.
The Tri-County Microenterprise Development Association serves as a collective voice for the small-small business enterprises of Madison, Yancey and Mitchell Counties, NC that are the foundation, heart and soul of the local economy, are compatible with preserving the culture and natural environment of the region, and are the best hope for single moms and marginal and displaced workers to escape the welfare and minimum wage pathways to perpetual poverty.
Notes From The Zoning Wars by Deb Louis
I was seventeen when I drafted my first zoning ordinanceÑwell, not a whole ordinance, but a fairly lengthy City Council Resolution amending an existing zoning ordinanceÑbut it was zoning ordinance language all right, in which I had already had a thorough education at the hands of one Margaret Moogan (known as ÒMoogieÓ by friend and foe alike) who at the time was CEO of one of the first associations of block associations in the country, the Avondale Community Council in Cincinnati, Ohio. Right after I had turned sixteen (so I was eligible to get Òworking papersÓ and therefore a Òreal jobÓ in the State of Ohio) Moogie stopped me in the hallway of Fellowship House, where I spent most of my after-school time on community organizing projects and where the Avondale Community Council occupied the 3rd floor, and she said ÒHow much do you make babysitting?Ó and I told her 50¢ an hour, which was pretty good money in those days which I got because I was the only one of my peers who would babysit infants and wash dishes while I was there. So she said ÒIÕll pay you 75¢ an hour to work for me, how about it?Ó
So I became the Girl-Friday-gofer-office-machine-operator/fixer-newsletter-writer-whatever-needed-doing person at the ACC, which along the way necessitated learning to read zoning ordinances, zoning maps, plat maps, building codes, construction specifications, city budgets, school budgets, etc etc yatta yatta so before too long I was getting up there at City Council meetings answering questions about proposals I had actually helped prepare. At that time (circa 1962-63) the critical issue was how the black and poor-white (mostly Appalachian migrant) populations were beginning to move out from the inner city to the first ring beyond the urban Òcore,Ó and owners of large houses in that next tier of neighborhoods, who had of course moved themselves and their families out to yet greener (or rather, whiter) pastures, were partitioning those structures into as many rentable units as they possibly could, not maintaining them, letting yards turn to dust and foundations to rubbleÑnone of which had been envisioned, and therefore provided for, in the original codes.
We were successful in getting some laudable standards in place, but corruption in code enforcement and slumlord contributions to City Council campaigns precluded actually turning the decay around, and it took several years of rent strikes and political action to achieve any visible improvement in the metroscape. By then, of course, Òdowntown redevelopment,Ó complete with riverfront glitz, a major stadium, and interstate-interchanges, was where the money was, and the corruption followed right alongÉ
Anyway, after the success of a reform Charter Party sweep of Council seats she was prominent in engineering, Moogie went on to become Director of the City of Detroit Housing Authority, in which she won some national awards for a model public housing complex. I ran into her on Cape Cod, of all places, some years after she had retired there and I congratulated her on the accomplishment, commenting that it gave housing and community development advocates like me hope that our efforts might actually bear fruit every once in a while. ÒHoney, I hate to bring you down,Ó she said, shaking her head sadly. ÒThere I actually had all that power, all that money, all those connections, and it took me nine years to get that done!Ó ÒBut hey,Ó I said, ÒYou got it done!Ó
After moderate success in achieving laws against discrimination in housing rentals and sales through the 60s, the 70s saw several years of court challenges to suburban Òexclusionary zoningÓ practices which accomplished the same goal through different meansÑthat is, intentionally enacting zoning and building codes that keep housing prices high in order to keep out low and moderate income residents, which of course has the effect of keeping out ethnic minorities as well. These culminated in the landmark precedents at the federal level known as ÒMts. Laurel 1 and 2.Ó These were decisions in favor of the plaintiffs, who were a group of African-American residents of a section of Mt. Laurel, NJ, many of whose families had lived there since colonial times, who were being pushed out due to inflation of property taxes in the wake of exclusively high-priced development and whose adult children couldnÕt afford to settle and raise THEIR families in their home community.
Hence the terms ÒaffordableÓ housing, and ÒbalancedÓ housiing, as opposed to Òlow costÓ housing, entered the lexicon of legislators, planners and builders, and the principle of Òdisparate effectÓÑwhen a law has a damaging effect on one subgroup it does not have on others and thereby violates the 14th Amendmant of the ConstitutionÑbecame established in U.S. civil rights law.In a series of later lawsuits based on the Mt. Laurel decisions, 23 of the 24 municipalities in Middlesex County, NJ were ordered by the federal district court to revise their land use and zoning ordinances to eliminate those effectively discriminatory provisions, and to add sectrions that would provide FOR the development of housing that everyday working people could afford (New Brunswick was the exception as a city that was the urban center into which those prohibited from living elsewhere in the county were artificially forced to settle). A consultant firm prominent in this field that I did a lot of planning and development work for (including documenting the original Mt. Laurel cases!) was charged with monitoring compliance with the court order, and I was subcontracted to do this work.
Well, I thought I knew something about the politics of zoning THENÑwell, I was in for a rude awakening! As the revised ordinances trickled in, I would review them, looking for the absence of specific former provisions that were discriminatory--like 5-acre minimum lot sizes, inflated permit fees, maximum # of bedrooms, narrow definitions of "family"--and for the presence of specific new provisions that would support, if not promote, the development of lower cost housing alternatives--like zones for Planned Unit Development, multifamily housing, rental housing, mixed-use development, and BY RIGHT, not as "special exceptions!" Of course several of them restricted multifamily units to Òsenior citizen housing,Ó but you canÕt blame them for trying to slip SOME stuff by in the fine print! In general, though, the ordinances pretty uniformly met the mandated standards, and I awaited the zoning maps, which always take longer to generate, to complete my review.
And YIKES! Here came all the pretty maps, with PLENTY of areas designated for affordable/balanced housing development. Unless you knew something about the geography and development activity in these towns. Those zones were (oops!) in flood plains where you were prohibited from building anything at all. Or (oops!) where large commercial installations had already been approved and permitted. Or (oops!) where highway expansions would obliterate everything in their wake in just a few years. Or (oops!) WAY out in the boondocks with no access to public transportation, supermarkets, jobsÉSo, when I harp on how convenient itÕs been for Madison County to keep holding up completion of and public access to the zoning MAP which corresponds in detail with the Zoning and Land Use ORDINANCE (and should be accompanied by overlays showing long-range transportation and infrastructure plans) this would be why.
So, when I harp on how convenient itÕs been for Madison County to keep holding up completion of and public access to the zoning MAP which corresponds in detail with the Zoning and Land Use ORDINANCE (and should be accompanied by overlays showing long-range transportation and infrastructure plans) this would be why.
Sermon given by Greg Yost at the Circle of Mercy, May 7, 2006 in Asheville, NC.
I Kings 21
1 Later the following events took place:ÊNaboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. Ê2And Ahab said to Naboth, Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money. ÊÊ3But Naboth said to Ahab, ÒThe LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.Ó
Vineyards in the Laurel
Today is Rural Life Sunday in the United Church of Christ.ÊI salute you if you knew this before tonightÑI wasnÕt aware of it until Joyce explained it to me.ÊRural Life Sunday is about making sure that the particular concerns of rural America arenÕt lost or ignored in the life of the church.
IÕm glad the UCC has a Rural Life Sunday.ÊOn the church calendar, itÕs sort of like what the King holiday is on the civil calendarÑthe newcomer who represents something that heretofore has been lacking.ÊIf you remember your church history, you know that we Christians were mostly an urban phenomenon in our first centuries of existence.ÊWe leapfrogged from town to town and city to city through the Roman Empire, making converts in urban contexts where religious experimentation was easier than it was in the more conservative countryside.ÊOnly after our faith became state sanctioned and approved did Christianity really spread from the cities out into the country.ÊWhen it did spread, it was often at the point of a sword.ÊThe persecution of traditional peasant religions isnÕt one of the things that we in the church can be proud of.ÊBut on Rural Life Sunday we can speak openly of it, and that, at least, is worth something.
And now the tables have turned on us.ÊThe irony is rich, and maybe somewhere in the hereafter Roman peasants, Indians, and druids are all sharing a hearty laugh at our expense.ÊWeÕve finally got our small churches all over the country, but now thereÕs a new religion making its way out of the cities.ÊThis religionÕs god is Money.ÊIts priests are every bit as blinkered and merciless as ours were.Ê
When we think about challenges facing rural America, we often think first of the farm crisis of the eighties, of Farm Aid, and of Willie Nelson with his whiskers and ponytail.ÊThese images in some ways may have been too successful.ÊLike the images and stories of the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, the familiarity lulls us into thinking that we have taken the measure of this part of our nationÕs history.ÊThe reality is always more diverse and more complicated than the shorthand popular accounts lead us to believe.
ÊI want to speak tonight of a fact of rural life that we are experiencing now in the mountains of western North Carolina:Êurban sprawl and reckless development.ÊAlthough I wonÕt be making reference to gargantuan John Deere tractors standing idle in golden fields of grain, the images of our homegrown struggle are no less poignant.ÊThink, if you will, of mountainsides covered with houses from creek bottom to ridge top.ÊThink of once clean trout streams running the color of mud after even the lightest rain.ÊPicture a local communityÕs extinction casually and arbitrarily assumed in the planning documents of a development corporation.ÊI know about these things because I am living through them.
ÊTerri and I live in a beautiful valley in northern Madison County.ÊWe have a small, white house with a fieldstone foundation that was built back in the teens or twenties.ÊThe walls of the house donÕt have any studs in themÑjust one-inch thick hardwood planks nailed together board and batten style.ÊAll of the wood that went into the house probably came from less than a few miles away.
Behind the house is Puncheon Fork, one of the creeks that form the headwaters of the Laurel River.ÊAt night with the windows open you can hear the waterÕs muted roar as it falls over the rocks.ÊItÕs a soothing sound, like that of the oceanÕs waves at the beach.
At the bottom of the valley is a Methodist church and an old rock school house that is being converted into a community center.ÊWe vote in the basement of the old school, and Will and Anna have 4-H club meetings in the church.ÊThereÕs a ball field where extremely serious five year old boys practice baseball with their dads.ÊPuncheon Fork and Laurel Creek join here.ÊThe steep hills around this place can make you feel that youÕre looking up from the bottom of a beautiful, green bowl.ÊMore than once I have stood here certain that itÕs the most beautiful place on earth.Ê
The tragedy is that this place, our home, may soon be destroyed.ÊTwo men, Rick Bussey and Orville English, representing an unknown number of investors, have together launched an assault on our community.ÊTheir development company, B & E Ventures, has acquired the land and secured the necessary zoning changes to build from scratch what will be Madison CountyÕs largest town with seven hundred to nine hundred homes.ÊIn comparison, Mars Hill has only about five hundred homes.
Bussey and English are not newcomers.ÊTogether they have operated the ski slopes at Wolf Laurel, most recently making the news for their discriminatory firing of lesbian employees.ÊEnglish was born and raised in the community.ÊBussey, a southern carpet-bagger from Atlanta and the public face of the company, exploits EnglishÕs credentials as a local every chance he gets.
Often he (Bussey) suggests to the media that his Wolf Ridge development is an organic continuation of resort-style development already present in the form of the Wolf Laurel Community.ÊThis is intentionally misleading.ÊWolf Laurel, a gated development at the upper end of Puncheon Fork, was begun in the nineteen sixties.ÊIt is not expanding and its homeowners association has nothing to do with B & E Ventures.ÊB & E gains from and thus encourages the confusion between the names Wolf Laurel and Wolf Ridge.ÊI wish theyÕd just be more honest and call it Busseyville.Ê
Grading has already begun on a jetport on the top of a mountain at the top of Watershed Road off of Laurel Valley Road.ÊThis massive construction project is reported to be on the scale of the nearby recently completed interstate 26.ÊA new gas station, the first of many new planned businesses, has been built by the highway.ÊTwo new sewage treatment plants are planned, one discharging into the creek above our house.ÊThe new houses, condos, and town homes are intended for lots on steep slopes one acre or less in size, necessitating the virtual clear cutting of hundreds of acres which will certainly result in tremendous soil erosion and damage from uncontrolled storm water runoff.ÊWe in the Ebbs Chapel community are steeling ourselves for an invasion.
ÊUnfortunately, we are not alone.ÊOur story is being repeated all over our mountains.ÊIn Watauga County, for example, a planned six thousand acre resort development called Laurelmor will bring fifteen hundred homes and one thousand condominiums.ÊThe Citizen-Times reports that it could be bigger than the combined size of Boone and Banner Elk by the end of the decade.
I remember reading a very sad story recently about a man in Fairview whose family land lay on six acres adjoining the highway.ÊIn a recent property revaluation, the county assessed his home at one million dollars.ÊThis was a simple elderly man who just wanted to live in the house that heÕd always lived in.ÊNow he couldnÕt pay his taxes anymore.
ÊItÕs stories like these that bring the biblical story of Naboth and his stolen vineyard to mind.ÊNaboth wasnÕt one of IsraelÕs high and mighty; he was just a farmer growing grapes on a patch of land that his family had worked for generations.ÊHe tended his vineyard for purely practical reasons, to make a living.ÊBut as is often the case, the care he took in something mundane and practical produced in the end something quite beautiful.ÊItÕs so beautiful, in fact, that it catches the eye of the king.
King Ahab wants NabothÕs vineyard for his very own.ÊHe makes him an offer:Êthe vineyard in exchange for an even better vineyard somewhere else (yeah, right!) or, if not that, then a fair sum of money.ÊAhab probably thinks of himself as a shrewd, but fair, businessman.ÊAfter all, he gives Naboth a choice, doesnÕt he?ÊWhat Ahab fails to comprehend is that to Naboth, his vineyard is more than a commodity piece of real estate.ÊNaboth tells Ahab, The LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.
Verse four in the chapter tells us that Ahab goes home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth had said.ÊHe doesnÕt get his way, and he pouts about it.ÊReading it again, I was struck by this detail of the story.ÊAhab apparently covets NabothÕs land purely on a whim.ÊAhab wants the land like a child wants a flashy new toy that he doesnÕt really need.ÊOf course, for Naboth, the stakes are much higher.ÊWhat to Ahab is a flashy toy is to Naboth his life and livelihood.Ê
AhabÕs social status, attitude, and business proposition remind me of the people for whom places like Laurelmor and Busseyville are being built.ÊThese folks already own big houses somewhere else.ÊMaybe they own even more than one.ÊA house in the mountains to them seems like such a relaxing place to get away to.ÊThey donÕt intend, and actually couldnÕt be, our neighbors, however, because they donÕt intend to live here.ÊAnd yet, such is the force of their entry into our counties, local cultures will disintegrate at their arrival.Ê
The story of Ahab and Naboth goes on with lurid plot points worthy of a Jerry Springer show.ÊJezebel, AhabÕs wife, comes to Ahab to see why heÕs depressed.ÊÊAfter he tells her, she scolds him for not acting like a king and simply taking what he wants.ÊThen she sets out to do it for him.
ÊIn AhabÕs name, Jezebel orchestrates a great feast and positions Naboth at the head of the assembly in plain view of everyone.ÊTwo scoundrels are hired to falsely accuse Naboth of cursing both God and the king.ÊThe elders and nobles of the city know of JezebelÕs treachery, and cooperate with her.ÊNaboth is taken out and stoned.
Jezebel then sends word to Ahab, saying:ÊGo, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.
Finally, Elijah the Prophet enters the story, prophesying to Ahab that dogs will lick up his blood in the same place where they licked up the blood of Naboth.ÊOh, yeahÑdogs will eat Jezebel, too.
There are many places in the world today, and in our own history, where the violence of this story would not result in shocked sensibilities, but rather nods of recognition. Fortunately, vineyard theft now in western North Carolina is more orderly and less bloody.ÊWe can thank lawyers for that, I guess.
This story is most useful to us, I think, when we honor the spirit of our fallen comrade, Naboth.ÊThe story doesnÕt have a happy ending, after all.ÊIf we donÕt find something redemptive in the example of Naboth, we relegate ourselves to merely witnessing and lamenting the outrages as they occur.ÊThe Ahabs and Jezebels of the world are perfectly happy for us to be satisfied with that.ÊLetÕs think about Naboth for a moment and see if we can do something more.
I think Naboth stood up straight from his pruning and frowned when he first saw King Ahab driving by the vineyard looking out the window of his sport utility camel.ÊDonÕt you imagine that he swallowed hard when Ahab made his pitch to buy him out?ÊI think Naboth probably had a sinking feeling from the very beginning about where it was leading him.ÊI imagine that when the accusation against him was finally made at the feast, the expression on NabothÕs face was not surprise, but bitterness.
ÊNaboth wasnÕt na•ve.ÊHe knew the odds were against him.ÊBut NabothÕs resistance wasnÕt predicated on the odds.ÊHe acted from a sense of what in the Hebrew Scriptures is termed righteousness.ÊHis NO to Ahab was just the tip of an iceberg.ÊBehind it lay a manÕs entire life and belief in a moral framework that gives structure to the world, a framework fashioned by the Hand of the LORD God.ÊAhab needed a translator the day he went to see Naboth; the two men werenÕt even speaking the same language.
In our mountains, there are too many Naboths today in the sense of the weak and powerless being preyed upon by the powerful.ÊBut there are also Naboths here to celebrate, as well, for their courage, their fidelity to their homes and history, their vision, and their acts of resistance.ÊHere are some of the Naboths that I have met in Madison County.
One is Cline Shelton.ÊMr. Shelton is a man in his eighties who served the United States overseas in World War II.ÊHis childhood was the stuff of a Dickens novel set in what were then the inaccessible highlands of Appalachia.ÊHe inherited nothing, but with his own sweat bought and paid for one hundred acres that became in time his vineyard.ÊLate in life he made a tragic error in transferring the title to a faithless son with the understanding that the son would care for him in his remaining years.ÊThe son sold the property to B & E Ventures, took the money, and left the state.ÊWhen Mr. Shelton speaks of this land at public meetings before the zoning board or the county commissioners, the pathos of his voice is almost unbearable.ÊSo closely does Mr. Shelton identify with his land, it is as if the mountain itself is speaking with the voice of this old man.
Mr. Shelton is a member of Laurel Valley Watch, another Naboth of Madison County.ÊLaurel Valley Watch is a citizens group that formed hastily last December when residents of the Laurel Valley suddenly realized the magnitude of the changes that were coming to them.ÊFor four months now Laurel Valley Watch has met weekly at the old school to strategize, educate, organize, and often grieve in response to the threat against their homes.ÊIt hasnÕt been easy.ÊThe two hour weekly meeting is only a tithe of the time that some members are putting into the defense of their community.ÊThey are playing catch up against an aggressive and infinitely better funded opponent.ÊSo far there have not been many successes other than an increased awareness in the county about the danger poorly managed development poses to MadisonÕs future.Ê
There are yet reasons for hope, however.ÊThe group has incorporated as a nonprofit and has lawsuits pending against the county and B & E Ventures.ÊIt has allied itself with similar citizens groups that are simultaneously developing in other areas of the county.ÊTogether, these groups are beginning to articulate a positive vision for Madison County that is influencing and even generating candidates for elected office.ÊIn five short months the energy motivating Laurel Valley Watch and others has broadened from a knee jerk, not-in-my-backyard squeal of protest to a countywide discussion about cronyism, transparency in government, and democratic renewal.ÊAnd thanks in part to letters from Circle of Mercy, we now have been promised a public hearing by the state about the proposed sewage treatment plant on Puncheon Fork.
ÊI want to challenge you here tonight on Rural Life Sunday to be aware of the extent that western North Carolina is yourvineyard that is being stolen by retiring baby boomers incentivized by a corrupt economic system.ÊÊYour middle class status is so effective in shielding you from the perils that others face that it can foster a false sense of invulnerability even as it fails you.ÊMake no mistake:Êthese are your mountains, and right now youÕre losing them.ÊWhen you look at your mountains, be like Naboth:Êclear eyed and realistic, sure of their worth, and decisive in what you will risk for them.Ê
Terri has an uncle in Georgia, an old man now who farmed all his life.ÊUneducated but analytical, profoundly impious and spiritual at the same time, he often tells me that heÕs seen only one miracle in his life. ÊÊWhen he plants his field with sunflowers, where does the oil in the seed come from?ÊHe feeds the sunflowers to his goats, fattening them.ÊHe doubles over with laughter when he tells me that the goats eat so many sunflowers that the grease runs out of their eyes.ÊI know that heÕs not being flippant when he tells me this.ÊUncle HampÕs sunflower story is his confession of faith.ÊIt expresses the awe and reverence of a sensitive man who has spent his entire life close to the land.
Georgia sunflowers, Midwestern farm fields, Middle Eastern vineyards, Carolina mountains:Êto their human offspring each is the voice of God.ÊMay we forever nurture and protect these gifts that God has given us.
January 15, 2006
It has come to my attention that the Laurel Valley community is now under siege by a multi-leveled group of developers, fronted by B&E Ventures. Destruction of our neighborhood by bulldozers has already begun and the effects are devastating to the delicate balance of waterways and wildlife corridors. In no way is this land grab seen in a positive light by the residents of Laurel Valley. We are not adverse to gradual, sensitive growth that takes into consideration the history, lifestyle and sensibilities of the present residents and condition of the area. What we do object to is the giving over of the stewardship of the land to those who wish only to profit from its exploitation. The homes projected to be built are “vanity homes” for those who are wealthy enough to fly in from other areas and stay for short periods of time. In no way are the new owners intending to integrate into and contribute to the preservation of their surroundings. At first glance this may seem to be a financial boon to the county, but upon further reflection is quickly seen to be what it actually is; a sell-out. It must be tempting for the county government of Madison to embrace this type of development because this category of home owner pays land taxes and does not draw upon the services of the county in the same way as permanent residents do. Permanent residents make use of the school system, and municipal and health services, but give back so much more to the community through their permanent status by supporting local businesses, farmer’s markets and maintaining the agricultural heritage of the county year round. Their commitment to their county contributes to its stability.
Resort/residential, and retail/business rezoning from agricultural/residential for literally hundreds of acres is extreme. Business traffic in a quiet residential/farming neighborhood is incompatible with a peaceful way of life. Vote to protect this way of life by saying “no” on all B&E Ventures requests for rezoning.
Respectfully,
Krystina Crimi
Mars Hill, NC
Thirty-five years ago I moved to Madison County. I was part of the first wave of ÒoutsidersÓ that arrived. I was young and looking for a place to put down roots. Over those years I have lived and worked here, built a home, run a business, and started a family. I have a son in the local elementary school, and a wife who works for the local college. I can still remember people around Asheville warning me against moving to Madison County. They considered Madison County backward and dangerous. My experience here, especially in those early years, showed me just how wrong they were. The first summer here, we arrived too late to put in a vegetable garden, but by fall had managed to freeze or can over two hundred quarts of food. How? The generosity of our neighbors, who stopped me every evening as I returned from work with baskets of freshly picked beans, tomatoes, corn, you name it. I was welcomed by my neighbors, helped some of them cut their tobacco, even hand dug the grave for one. In the ensuing years, I have come to love this county and consider it my home. My son was born here, and loves this place. We travel often as a family, to many beautiful places, but none more beautiful than Madison County.
Today a new wave of ÒoutsidersÓ is discovering the rural beauty of Madison County. Many are drawn here by the same qualities that beckoned me, and many want to become a part of this community. Unfortunately, many others, while drawn to the county by its beauty, are not interested in being part of the community. Many want to build and live in gated communities, full of mostly second or third homes that sell for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars. One developer even plans to level a mountaintop and put in a landing strip. Why do they need gates? Who are they keeping out? Gates signify exclusion, not inclusion. They come from places like Atlanta, Miami and Los Angeles, places where real estate prices and the cost of living have skyrocketed. They come flush with profits from investments, seeking a quieter place to live the good life, away from the pollution, crime and traffic of the cities that house their primary residences. Many will employ the old legal, but sleazy, practice of maintaining a ÒprimaryÓ residence in a state like Florida, which has no income tax, while spending most of their time here, paying no income tax. To them, Madison County looks like a bargain.
Many people in Madison County, for various reasons, seem indifferent to what this new wave of development will bring. Many even welcome the high priced communities, saying they will increase the tax base, without burdening county government, for few of these newcomers have school age children. Yes, they will require no schools, probably no public assistance, but what will this explosion of high-end, exclusive development bring us? The recent reevaluation of property in Madison sent shockwaves throughout the county. Many families who have lived here for generations find themselves wondering how much longer they will be able to afford to remain here. Just imagine what the building of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of homes valued at half a million dollars and above will do to the housing and land market, and consequently, to the value of all our homes. Now that Buncombe County has been developed to the hilt, Madison, which used to be considered Òtoo far out,Ó is set to become the new developersÕ playground. Ironically, the new interstate, which many of us supported because it would mean safer roads for the school busses, is hastening this development explosion, which may make it impossible for young, working families with children to stay here and send their kids to Madison County schools.
If you think I am being an alarmist, you have only to look at places around the country like Aspen, Colorado. Once a beautiful, sleepy mountain town, today it and the surrounding county are full of million dollar homes owned by mostly part-time residents, and all the locals have had to move out of the county, or into trailer parks. They commute back to their former county to work as Òhired helpÓ for the wealthy. Is this the future we want for Madison County? More to the point, do we have any choices?
We are lucky to live here. Those whose roots go back for generations, and those of us who moved here to become a part of the community owe it to our children to preserve the beauty and integrity of this county. Does that mean we stop all change, fight all development, lock the door to all newcomers? No. But it does mean we fight to ensure that the change that comes is done in an orderly fashion, through a thoughtful and deliberate process, with the full knowledge of, and input from, the residents of the county.
We currently have county-wide land use planning and a subdivision ordinance. They are a start, but need to be reexamined, and hopefully tightened, to prevent massive sprawl, especially on the steeper slopes of this county. We need to look much more carefully at the impact on streams and rivers of hillside development. We need to consider more tax incentives for farmers, so that they can keep their land, not have to sell it because of inflated land values. We also need more resources in the area of enforcement of building and zoning requirements, to ensure that even the present minimal safeguards are enforced. Permitting fees should be raised substantially, especially with regard to subdivisions, to ensure that those who want to develop bear the cost of development. As a general contractor myself, I would welcome higher fees if they would be used to hire needed inspectors and staff. Code enforcement is meant not just for the protection of the home buyer, but the entire community.
We have a process to control change. It is the political process. We elect county commissioners to administer public policy. They pass the ordinances, appoint the zoning board, hire the employees who enforce policy. This is an election year. While I donÕt suggest we simply vote, and let our representatives do the rest, I do suggest that without responsive elected officials, nothing good will happen. We must attend all public meetings, and campaign events, demanding to know where the present officials and those who seek to replace them stand on growth and development issues. We need to vote our interests, not our parties or our whims. Then we need to hold those we vote for accountable. At the same time, we need to support those, like the Laurel Valley Watch, who are standing up for their communities. This is not a partisan issue, but it most definitely is political.
Each of us needs to look carefully at the beautiful county we live in, and into the faces of our children we want to inherit that beauty, and decide what we want our countyÕs future to be. Once all the mountaintops have been leveled for landing strips, the huge houses built, the streams muddied, and the gates erected and locked, it will be too late. We will all be outsiders, looking in, wondering how this could have happened.
Paul Gurewitz, Marshall
At public meetings recently, some people seem bent on giving the rest of us a dubious civics lesson. A question which they repeatedly ask of speakers questioning public officials, or simply making statements, is ÒHow long have you lived here?Ó This is a disturbing trend, because I was under the impression that everyone who makes his/her home in the county, pays taxes, and abides by the law is considered a citizen of the county, with all the attendant rights, responsibilities and privileges of citizenry. After a recent meeting of the county commissioners, I tried to ask the county attorney (who I believe works for all of us in the county) why he refused to speak into a microphone (like everyone else in attendance) so that all the citizens present could hear the legal opinion he was delivering to the commissioners. After first trying to ignore my question, he came back with that troubling question, only in slightly different form, ÒHow long have you been here with us?Ó Who did he mean by Òus?Ó
This attempt to draw distinctions between locals (anyone born and raised here) and outsiders (everyone else, I guess) is an old ploy. ItÕs divide and conquer. Pit one group against the other, so that business as usual can go on. I even fell into the trap recently, in a letter to this paper, when I made mention of the fact that IÕve lived here 35 years. The real questions to ask of anyone involved in public debate is, Òwhat is your interest in the question, and what are your opinions?Ó Looking back through history, itÕs clear that being ÒfromÓ somewhere doesnÕt mean one has the best interests of everyone else from there at heart. And, in the end, we, or our ancestors, are all from Òsomewhere else.Ó We are all citizens of Madison county because we chose to stay here, or moved here.
The issues that confront our county (creating good jobs, protecting the natural beauty of the county, improving our schools, making sure that runaway taxes donÕt force all but the wealthy to leave) demand a much more civil, and a much deeper dialog among all of us. LetÕs stop talking in terms of locals and outsiders, and start listening to the concerns of all Madison county residents. We all have the same stake in this countyÕs future.
Paul Gurewitz, Marshall, April 7, 2006
The Madison County commissioners recently voted to rezone several hundred acres of rural residential and agricultural earth to resort and commercial, ignoring the desires of 260 community members in the courthouse, and another 75 outside, unable to get in, in favor of the desires of two developers and their minions of out of state investors. The commissioners then went into closed door session, with the result that the next day, minutes from a June meeting were magically amended to retro-rezone a proposed private jetport to industrial. No messy public input.
Now Laurel Valley residents can look forward to a happy decade of noisy construction, frenetic truck traffic, incessant blasting as a gap the size of the Beaucatcher I-240 cut is ripped from the heart of the mountain for a jetport the community will never use, and likely the first no-gay gated communities in WNC. And after the decade is passed, we can sit at night and reminisce about the Milky Way we once saw; the trout, bear, wild turkey, deer and owls once inhabiting our lives regularly; sipping bottled water from the new Mega B-Ore-ville Mart, since our springs all dried; barely hearing each other over the screamings across the sky, amusing ourselves by taking bets on which ill-built mcmansion is next to slide into the watershed.
Steve Crimi
Building on Foundations That Previous Neighbors Left Us
Revisiting Some Relevant Recent History
by Debbie Louis
In the summer of 2003, a broadly representative group of Madison County residents, prompted by improper and potentially devastating subdivision approvals at the Bend of Ivy, met a number of times to develop a shared vision of how they would like to see development unfold in our community and a set of principles they felt could guide the ongoing process in this direction. This is what they arrived at:
Some things we'd like to see in 10 years: