Skeptical Commission Delays Discussion of Cedar Mountain Small Area Plan and the "Z-word"

The Transylvania County Commission didn't permanently shelve the detailed document, which included a recommendation for limited zoning in the community, but just about did so, an advocate said.

BREVARD — Mark Tooley, a member of the committee that spent 19 months creating the Cedar Mountain Small Area Plan, said back in February that he was concerned it would all come to nothing.

“I worry it will just be put on a shelf somewhere,” he said.

After the Transylvania County Commission voted 3-2 on Monday to delay discussion of the report until an unspecified future date, Tooley said his prediction had all but come to pass.

“They came as close as they could,” he said.

The plan’s only vocal supporter on the Commission was David Guice, who praised the work of the Cedar Mountain Small Area Planning Committee, provided evidence the group had followed a “road map” created by the county’s broadly supported 2025 Comprehensive Plan, and noted the small rural community’s “overwhelming” backing for the document’s preservation goals.

One of its detractors was Commission Chair Jason Chappell, who advocated exactly what Tooley had feared.

“I am not not in favor of taking action other than accepting the report,” he said.

Commissioner Teresa McCall joined him in voting against Guice’s narrowly approved motion, which was, specifically, to “consider the draft (plan) and table (further) consideration for future meeting.”

The motion was supported by Commission Vice Chair Jake Dalton and Commissioner Larry Chapman, who said the plan called out for a discussion of its most controversial element. That is a recommendation to extend the the county’s current zoning ordinance — which now covers only Pisgah Forest — to include Cedar Mountain, a community of about 1,100 residents on either side of Greenville Highway in southeastern Transylvania.

“The elephant in the room is the Z-word,” Chapman said. “We can say what we want, but this is spot zoning.”

But just because he supported discussion, he said, does not mean he supports zoning. He doesn’t think the county is ready for it, he said, pointing out that a large percentage of its land is in public ownership and that the remainder is subject to restrictions on, for example, building on steep slopes and in flood plains.

The document, which was drawn up in planning committee meetings that started in September of 2019, would not have created zoning even if the commission had accepted the plan as written, which was one of four options presented by Allen McNeill, the county’s Planning and Community Development Director.

The Small Area Plan is not a regulatory document, McNeill said, but a set of recommendations that would require further commission action to become policy.

It is also an exhaustive report that includes sections on the community’s natural resources and history. It detailed the results of a 2020 survey and more recent public input sessions that showed overwhelming support for goals such as protecting the Little River watershed, preserving the natural and rural character of the community, and controlling growth — even if this required government restrictions. 

For example, 91 percent of survey respondents — most of them Cedar Mountain residents — either agreed or strongly agreed that the county should “regulate the size, usage and design of industrial developments.”

The plan also included a list of recommended “tools” to realize such goals. Some, such as extending the zoning law and creating a form-based code “to regulate the design of future development,” imagine controls on growth. But even several other tools, such as identifying grant funding for historic preservation, would create demands on staff, the report said.

Considering these demands and potential costs to the county, Guice said, required additional discussion. But the plan was worth this effort because of the work that went into it.

“You all have done an exceptional job,” he said, referring to the committee. “I would never want to move forward and not take some positive action without going through all of these things, without taking the time that is necessary.”

He also noted that Cedar Mountain’s plan was imagined as a model for documents that might be created by other communities in Transylvania.

“I just see my neighbors and friends and people I am aware of, and they are expressing the same concerns,” he said.

McCall said she had received emails and phone calls in opposition to the plan, which contained language that dissuaded her from backing further discussion.

“The words that jump out to me are ‘regulation,’ ‘ordinance,’ ‘considerable staff time and funds’ . . . etcetera, etcetera,” she said.

The commission’s vote came after Tooley and two other members of the now-disbanded planning committee urged the commission to support the report and its aims.

Vice Chair Lucia Gerdes argued that planning regulations don’t discourage investment, but encourage it by providing clear guidance for development. And in a comment that might help lay the groundwork for future discussion, Tooley said the zoning recommendation in the plan was limited to commercial and industrial uses, and to Cedar Mountain’s main transportation corridor.

“Zoning is not a bad word or a sinister concept,” he said. “It is simply a way for a community to define in advance how it wants to grow and develop.”

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