Macon County Planning Board 07-18-2013

The video of the entire meeting is above and a few brief notes of what took place is below. 

MEDIA ROLL CALL

Macon County News (present for the entire meeting)
The Franklin Press (present for the entire meeting)
Macon Media (me) (present for the entire meeting)
The Smoky Mountain News (their reporter arrived at 5pm, and was present for the last 9 minutes of the meeting)

NEW MEMBERS

Two new members were welcomed aboard, John Schilling and Joe Deal.

PUBLIC COMMENT

Three members of the public spoke:

Ben (I did not catch his last name)
Sharon Taylor, of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee
Kathy Tinsley, of the Voluntary Agricultural District Board

All spoke against allowing fill to be added to the flood plain.

MEETING NOTES

The board elected a Chair and Vice Chair at the meeting. Derrick Rowland was selected by a unanimous vote as the Chaiman. Chris Hanners and Jimmy Goodman were nominated to serve as Vice Chairman, and Chris Hanners was selected by a vote of 5-4.

The board returned, at the directive of the Board of County Commissioners, to consideration of the Flood Plain Ordinance, with an eye toward changing it to allow fill in the flood plain. (This originated with a request by the Wells Grove Baptist Church to allow them to fill in the flood plain on their property in order to build a parking lot video of the times they've come before the County Commissioners can be seen here and here).

The board had to decide whether or not to change the flood plain ordinance based on the months of previous discussion on the issue. They voted to change the ordinance to allow filling in the flood plain, with the particulars to be decided later.

All this deliberation could be rendered moot in an instant once Senate Bill 612 passes the North Carolina General Assembly. The bill, if signed into law, would allow for regulatory relief for the citizens of North Carolina from environmental concerns by preventing any county in the state from passing regulations that were stricter than the state standards. As the law currently stands, counties can pass stricter local regulations than the state standards.

A lengthy discussion ensued, with members of the board bringing up items and concepts for consideration by the board. 

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting of the Macon County Planning Board will take place in the conference room at the Macon County Health Department at 4pm on August 15, 2013.