A New Model For Growth

"A conspiracy against property rights? (An opinion letter from the Franklin Press)

Have you followed the Mountain Landscapes Initiative story in our local press? What great promises they make. We will have a neat, clean, orderly community, consisting of seven western counties, because participation by the people will make the laws MLI drafts righteous. Now here is the rest of the story.

The Lawrence Group from St. Louis, specializing in "New Urban Planning," will be conducting the meetings. Someone from St. Louis is supposed to tell us how to plan here in the mountains?

Let's be clear, they will be preparing land use plans that will impact our property rights. But how can environmental groups or non-government offices like Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, Western North Carolina Alliance, Preservation North Carolina, Cowee Community Development Organization, or even the Department of Transportation draft laws that affect us? What happened to the "peoples voice" concept. Are special interest groups like these appropriate to draft laws for us, the citizens and taxpayers? No, they are not!

We need to be clear-the central planning which MLI proposes is directly opposite to our present model of property rights and property management. Why are we being offered a new model when there is nothing wrong with the present one?

Central planning like this has been tried over and over but always comes to an unsatisfactory end. America was not founded on socialism.

All of this begs the question. Why did our commissioners pay Mountain Landscapes Initiative, a non-governmental organization, $10,000 to write laws that will have a serious impact on our property rights and not require any accountability? Further, MLI was not voted in so it cannot be vetoed out. Which, in my opinion, makes them very dangerous as they will be around indefinitely, chiseling away at our property rights.

Norman Roberts

Franklin"

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Thank you, Norman Roberts for taking the time to voice your concerns in the Franklin Press.
Without viewpoints such as yours we would not have the opportunity to have these discussions that the Mountain Landscapes Initiative is facilitating.

You ask, "Why are we being offered a new model when there is nothing wrong with the present one?"

Let's unpack that for a minute. First of all, lets talk about the "offering" of this new model. The Lawrence Group, based out of St. Louis, are only consultants. A consultant is someone who offers advice on an area of expertise, and it just so happens that the Lawrence Group are experts at architecture and planning. But we here in Western North Carolina are also consultants- we are experts at knowing the changes in the land- whether it is a natural change or a man-made one. That's why locals are involved in this process. While the Lawrence Group may be sophisticated and very savvy at the general principles of architecture and planning, we, the people of WNC, know what has and has not worked in this region for many generations. The end result, therefore, will not be an "offering" on the Lawrence Group's part of a new model, but a collaborative effort between experts in planning and experts of WNC to create this new model.

Which brings us to our second point- the present model is NOT working. Look up at your mountains for a minute. We are looking at ours right now, and they are beginning to look like patchwork home sites for 9,000 sq ft homes. Whether or not you think this is right is not the point- at some point this development begins to effect the area around it. Locals are being taxed off their land that has been in their family for generations because of the rise in property value due to the rise in demand for that property. Wells are running dry because of the added pressure that development is putting on our aquifers. Houses are being built in areas that are destined for major landslides- which is not only unsafe for the new homeowner but is also very dangerous to the locals in the valley below. Residents are terrified that they are loosing grip on the beauty and serenity of a mountain lifestyle that their families have stayed here for generation after generation. These are only a few of the issues that accompany unbridled development.

On that tone, we recognize that growth WILL happen, but we want it to happen on our terms. We do not want to pay the cost- rising taxes and the like- for the pressure that large, unplanned developments are putting on our infrastructure. We don't want to deal with the long term effects that a developer from Florida imposes on us when he/she is here to make a quick buck and then leaves. This is OUR community, and while we are excited to have a new diversity and new faces to look at and share it with, we want it on OUR terms.

This is not socialism. This is regionalism. We are proud of our communities and landscape and want to see them stay in tact for hundreds of years to come. This doesn't mean unchanged- it means promoting the values of this area that our great-grandparents would be proud of. When it comes down to defending property rights, we are on the same page- we just want to have something left to defend.