West Jefferson Board to Discuss Land Use Plan

By Joel Frady

The West Jefferson Board of Alderman will discuss the town's recently completed Land Use Plan at their meeting on Thursday, Dec. 4. The plan, composed with the help of the High Country Council of Governments, was created as a tool that could help promote healthy growth in the future.

Duncan Cavanaugh, regional planner for HCCOG, said that they were approached approximately a year ago to help with the project.

"The goal was to make sure that the town has a plan in place for orderly growth," he said. He later noted that "as the town grows, companies are going to come in and homes are going to start sprouting up. Companies and big residential areas may ask for things, like town water and sewer, and that's an expensive proposition." The Land Use Plan will "guide growth and make sure that in the future, growth is in step with the town's ability to provide infrastructure, to look out 25 years and say 'We know growth is coming, let's make sure we have the capability to accommodate that in a logical, non-haphazard way."

"The town has a fairly extensive set of ordinances to look at, and we used those as a reference point going forward," Cavanaugh later said. "Some of them were newer, some older, but we got a feel for where the town wanted to go using those as a base." The town's ordinances, added from 1979 to 2007, set regulations for zoning districts, sewer use, the fire prevention code, junked motor vehicles and wireless communications, just to name a few.

"I think the town really just wanted to take a look at the ordinances they already had on the books," said Cavanaugh. "They wanted to see if any of the older ordinances needed updating, and in the process of constructing a detailed plan like this we really got out and looked at the town to see if any revisions are needed."

Cavanaugh and Phil Trew, director of planning and development for HCCOG, personally surveyed the 1,000 parcels of land inside the current town limits of West Jefferson and 2,000 parcels located within the proposed one-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) to see the current uses of the land first-hand.

Working with the West Jefferson Planning Board and Board of Alderman, HCCOG drafted the 27-page plan to cover every aspect of the town's use in regards to land use, infrastructure and physical environment.

Among the recommendations for land usage are amending the town's zoning ordinance in several ways, such as including site and building standards for some commercial development, including minimum landscaping requirements for businesses and defining screening and buffering requirements between zoning districts. They also recommend regulating the location and development of sexually-oriented businesses, exercising the town's ETJ and evaluating the annexation of properties along Mount Jefferson Road and N.C. 163.

In regards to infrastructure, the plan recommends updating the water and sewer use ordinance to establish conditions under which West Jefferson will provide water and sewer service; establishing impact fees for new developments; collaborating with the N.C. Department of Transportation on the Jefferson/ West Jefferson transportation plan; and requiring new commercial and multi-family developments to include sidewalks.

In regards to the physical environment, the plan makes recommendation such as: developing a stormwater management plan that includes stormwater treatment methods; requiring appropriate sized stream buffers; and participating in the N.C. Urban and Community Forestry program to address landscaping on public lands.
Cavanaugh added that the land use plan, if adopted, could also have immediate perks for the town.

"Having a land use plan helps with getting grant funds for the town," he said. "It's one of the most common questions that is asked on a grant application, and if you have one you get more points."

Cavanaugh said that the town's government helped the project along, and that "it's been a delight to do the project. The town has a real engaged Planning Board and a real engaged Board of Aldermen who are looking to the future, realizing that growth is coming, and it's not a bad thing."

West Jefferson Mayor Dale Hudler said that the credit for forming the Land Use Plan goes to his predecessor, Dale Baldwin, and that it will help because the town has "to be able to forsee and thoughtfully plan our growth.
"We must insure that however our town grows, we have limitations in place to have it grow the way the citizens want it to grow," Hudler continued. "The thing that encourages me is that if we do experience growth, it won't cost the town a lot of money to support the infrastructure." He noted that he also like the buffers between designated areas, but that he believes "it will take a major effort to rework our existing zoning to come in line with the adopted plan, if it is so adopted. This is the first piece of getting together a plan for the future of West Jefferson, so there's a lot that will have to go with it."

To find out more about the proposed Land Use Plan, visit Town Hall in downtown West Jefferson or call (336) 246-3551.