COMMUNITY PLANNING FRAMEWORK

This element summarizes the current land use planning framework and establishes a new planning framework for Henderson County.

The Current Planning System

Sub-county level or “small area” planning in Henderson County has traditionally occurred in response to a specific need and generally at the request of the residents of a given area. Most small area planning has occurred through the rezoning process of the Henderson County Zoning Ordinance whereby a property owner or grouping of property owners or citizens presents the County with an application requesting a change in zoning on a particular property or within a given community.

Such requests were difficult to arrange prior to the application of county-wide zoning with the adoption of Open Use Zoning in 2001. First-time zonings could occur only if they were geographically contiguous to an existing zoned area. Otherwise, according to North Carolina State law the subject area of the rezoning had to be at least 640 acres in size and contain at least 10 separate tracts of land under separate ownership (NCGS 153A-342). This size requirement made it very difficult for citizen groups to organize a legally sufficient request. With the adoption of countywide zoning the requirements under state law were relaxed, allowing for citizen-initiated rezonings of any size. This made it easier for citizens to organize community-planning studies. However, other problems with the rezoning process persist. These will be discussed below.

In July of 1999, the Henderson County Board of Commissioners adopted the Countywide Land Use Regulation Guide (hereafter, “LURG”) as a policy guide for the implementation of the land use management initiatives envisioned in the 1993 Comprehensive Land Use Plan and other planning documents and discussions.

The LURG set forth 3 key strategies for implementation:

1. Adopt Open Use Zoning and complete a Zoning Ordinance Rewrite. Open Use Zoning was adopted in 2001. A Zoning Ordinance Rewrite was begun in 2000, but was put aside until the completion of this Comprehensive Plan. The Growth Management Strategy element of this Comprehensive Plan calls for the County to resume the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite via the development of a Land Development Code.

2. Study of Areas Adjacent to Municipal / ETJ Boundaries.

3. Study of major corridor and high growth areas.

The LURG also encouraged the continuation of citizen-initiated rezonings.

Overall, the rezoning process and the LURG, in combination with the 1993 Future Land Use Plan, have effectively shaped land use planning in Henderson County. However, the current planning framework has certain limitations:

a) There is no established schedule for the studies envisioned by strategies 2 and 3 of the LURG. Additionally, the County does not proactively approach communities to engage in planning in advance of a citizen-initiated rezoning request. Rather, plans are often developed in response to a crisis or some emerging situation, often in response to public outcry. This generally reactionary approach minimizes the County’s leadership role and occasionally leads to a rather hostile planning environment.

b) Because no formal small area planning schedule exists, the County is generally unable to conduct long-term strategic and budgetary planning to prepare for planning projects that do arise. Rather, the County is legally obligated to respond to formal rezoning requests which can be quite costly and time consuming for the Planning Board, Staff, and applicants alike.

c) While small area planning projects such as corridor plans are useful at the local level their scope is sometimes too small for the plan authors to take into consideration important influencing factors immediately outside of the corridor. Such studies are sometimes based upon study areas that are isolated or without clear logic. Gaps are created and it can be difficult to integrate such planning areas into a broader geographic context.

d) Plans developed in this manner process tend to focus upon regulatory issues to the exclusion of broader community planning issues such as utilities, roads, schools, parks, etc.

In summary the lack of a methodical, county-wide planning schedule creates gaps between planning areas, can facilitate the development of disjointed plans that do not always adequately relate to the surrounding geographic area and the county at large, and offers no long-term predictability in terms of when and where planning will occur.

Additional planning remains to be done. Most major growth areas and corridors lack specific plans. Furthermore, while the implementation of Open Use Zoning has halted involuntary ETJ extensions, it will prove beneficial to both the County and its municipalities to improve coordination and to continue refining land use management along municipal / county boundaries.

Figure CP.1 lists the major planning initiatives that have been conducted since 1993.

Figure CP.1 Major Planning Initiatives
Study / Plan	LURG Guide Strategy		Citizen Initiated Zoning Changes
	(2) Municipal / ETJ Boundaries	(3) Major Corridors / High Growth Areas
Hoopers Creek Zoning Study
Bearwallow Zoning
East Flat Rock Zoning Study
Howard Gap Road / Brookside Camp Road Zoning Study
Mills River / Fletcher Area Land Use Study	Fletcher Mills River
Hebron Road / Davis Mountain Road Zoning Study	Laurel Park
US 25 South Corridor Study	Hendersonville Flat Rock
US 25 North Area Zoning Study	Fletcher Hendersonville Mills River
Shading correlates study to column heading.

Community Based Planning Framework

The next step in the County’s approach to planning at the sub-county level is the establishment of a community based planning process. This process builds upon the LURG by establishing a series of defined planning areas that will be the subject of detailed community plans. Such a process allows for advance project planning and budgeting, avoids geographic gaps, and allows for a scope of study that is more comprehensive in nature. Each community plan should address, at a minimum, the following issues:

· Schools & Other Public Facilities

· Recreation & Greenways

· Sewer & Water

· Agriculture, Open Space, & Natural Resources

· Historic / Cultural Resources

· Housing

· Detailed Future Land Use Plan

· Detailed Zoning Plan

· Transportation

The adoption of each community plan shall constitute an amendment to this Comprehensive Plan. Each community plan shall be informed by the various detailed studies envisioned in Section 3 of this Comprehensive Plan (i.e., sewer and water master plan, long-range public school facilities master plan, and others.). Furthermore, community plans may identify needed improvements to these studies and so revisions to such should be made as necessary.

Each community plan shall be developed with extensive and ongoing public involvement and shall enlist the participation of all relevant local, regional, state and federal government agencies (i.e., NCDOT, French Broad MPO, Henderson County Parks and Recreation), as well as relevant private and non-profit entities (i.e., the Affordable Housing Coalition, Chambers of Commerce, and others.). Cooperative planning with the municipalities is crucial to the effectiveness of this process. Therefore, there should be direct involvement from each relevant municipality. At minimum municipal staff should work with County Staff to ensure good transitions from municipal to County planning areas. Ideally, studies covering areas of key importance to municipalities should be jointly funded and staffed with joint municipal / county study committees made up of planning board members from each jurisdiction and joint adoption by all involved jurisdictions.

Figure CP. 2 divides the county into a series of community planning areas. Generally these community planning areas follow township boundaries. However, within the Urban Services Area of the Growth Management Strategy community planning areas focus upon transportation corridors rather than Townships and follow natural breaks (generally streams or ridge lines) between such transportation corridors, wherever possible.

Figure CP. 4 prioritizes and assigns a schedule to the study of each planning area identified in Figure CP. 2. The highest priority is assigned to areas within the Urban Services Area of the Growth Management Strategy where it is anticipated that extensive growth will occur. Within the Urban Services Area priority is based upon road improvement schedules as envisioned within the 2004 – 2010 Transportation Improvement Plan. Outside of the Urban Services Area, Townships are prioritized according to their rate of growth as identified in Section 2, Population Trends.

The schedule for the development of Community Plans that is shown on Figure CP.3 assumes current Planning Staff levels and assumes a fairly conservative planning budget. Work and cost sharing with municipalities, where appropriate, coupled with additional County planning funds as well as an increase in Planning Staff and / or the greater utilization of outside firms could shorten the planning timeframe.

Modifications to this Comprehensive Plan and Community Plans

This Comprehensive Plan and the community plans are intended to be living, dynamic documents rather than static documents that are pulled off the shelf every 10 years for an update. As such, it is inevitable that policy decisions will arise that are either not contemplated within, or are inconsistent with the established policies of, this Comprehensive Plan and future community plans. Also, from time to time it will become apparent that this Comprehensive Plan and community plans are outdated or in error with regard to a particular issue and an update and re-adoption may be necessary. Economic development incentives, rezonings, transportation projects, etc., are likely to give rise to such situations. The following is a summary of the County’s policy regarding revisions and updates to this plan:

a) The County will continue to accept rezoning applications from within the Community Planning Area both prior to and after the development of community plans, although the County will refrain from accepting rezoning application during the development of such plans.

b) In considering a rezoning application strong deference will be given to the recommendations of this Comprehensive Plan and subsequent community plans. Prior to the adoption of a community plan rezonings will be denied if they are inconsistent with the text of Map 24: Future Land Use Map (Appendix I) of this Comprehensive Plan. Where a proposed rezoning is inconsistent with either the text or the map, the applicant shall be required to justify the deviation and the County – should it choose to adopt the rezoning – shall also make its reasons for deviation clear and shall modify and readopt it prior to adopting the proposed rezoning.

c) After the adoption of a community plan the County will, as a general rule, deny all rezonings that are not consistent with such plan. Where a proposed rezoning is inconsistent with either the text or the map the applicant shall be required to justify the deviation and the County – should it choose to adopt the rezoning – shall also make clear its reasons for deviation and modify and readopt the relevant community plan prior to adopting the proposed rezoning. An additional public input period will be built into the rezoning process to allow for public input from residents of the community plan.

d) All other major decisions of the County should be evaluated for their consistency with this Comprehensive Plan and relevant community plans. Alternative choices should be explored when those decisions appear to be inconsistent with such. Where this Comprehensive Plan and relevant community plans appear to be outdated or inaccurate, they should be modified and readopted as appropriate.

e) This Comprehensive Plan will undergo a thorough revision in the years 2010, 2015, and 2020 (see Figure CP.4). The County will conduct annual reviews of this Comprehensive Plan, in order to make any necessary adjustments in terms of policy or to the implementation schedule. Any necessary re-adoptions should coincide with the adoption of community plans whenever possible.

f) Community plans should be reviewed every 5 years, with significant updates every 10 years.

g) The rezoning process of the Henderson County Zoning Ordinance (or Land Development Code…also see Section 3, Growth Management Strategy Action Strategies GMS-01.B and C) will be modified to incorporate the aforementioned modifications to the County’s rezoning procedures.

h) Finally, it is recognized that additional issues may be identified that are not currently considered within this Comprehensive Plan. Examples may include issues regarding library facilities, emergency services, solid waste, and others. It is intended that this Comprehensive Plan be amended and readopted as necessary to account for such issues.

IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE

The following pages set forth a schedule for the implementation of this Comprehensive Plan. The implementation schedule is intended to be consistent with the implementation schedule of the Strategic Plan. The implementation schedules of both documents should be to be reviewed frequently and modified as necessary for consistency.

Implementation of this Comprehensive Plan is broken into four phases, the duration of which is indicated on Figure CP.2, below. Each Action Strategy of Section 3 is assigned a phase within which implementation should take place. Certain Action Strategies that require continual implementation are assigned to an “Ongoing” category.

Figure CP. 3, below, summarizes each Recommendation and Action step set forth by this Comprehensive Plan. The implementation phase to which each Action Strategy is assigned is indicated. Also, target resources and responsible parties are identified. Where possible target dates are assigned and are typically indicated by a reference to a given fiscal year.

Figure CP.3 Implementation Schedule Master Summary

Recommendation & Action Strategies	Phase & Target Date	Resources	Responsibility
Economic Development Summary
Recommendation E-01: Support the development of the industrial sector of the economy by implementing the recommendations of the Lockwood Greene Study.
A. Work with the Chamber of Commerce and other entities to implement the Lockwood Greene Study.	Ongoing[1]	Current Staff, Chamber / etc. Resources, Annual Budget Allocations to Chamber	BOC / Manager, Chamber et al.
B. Conduct a Countywide Industrial / Commercial Zoning Study.	Phase I FY 2004-2005	Current Staff Resources, Possible Consultant Funding from FY04-05 Budget	Planning, Consultant, Chamber et al.
Recommendation E-02: Support the development of the commercial sector.
C. Explore ways to support & expand programs & policies that promote local businesses & locally produced products.	Ongoing	Current Resources	BOC / Manager, Chamber et al, Travel & Tourism, Cooperative Extension
Recommendation E-03: Promote appropriate, compatible tourism.
D. Participate in the development of a Heritage Tourism Plan.	Phase I FY 2004-2005	Current Staff Resources	Travel & Tourism
Recommendation E-04: Pursue innovative approaches to regional economic development initiatives.
E. Identify and act upon opportunities for joint economic development projects with municipalities, neighboring jurisdictions, and area economic development entities.	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources	BOC / Manager, Chamber et al.
Other Action Strategies
A. Take a leadership role in developing the Asheville Regional Airport and its vicinity as a regional center of economic activity.	Phase I Draft FY 2004-2005
F. Identify any economically distressed areas of the county and explore revitalization measures.	Ongoing (During Community Planning Process)	Refer Other Steps, below	Planning
G. Pursue legislation and solicit regional and statewide support to further economic development initiatives.	Ongoing	Current Resources	BOC / Manager, Chamber et al.
H. Continue to budget funds annually for economic development initiatives.	Ongoing	Annual Budget Allocations	BOC / Manager
Agriculture Element Summary
Recommendation A-01: Reduce Farmland Loss.
A. Consider the costs and practicality of establishing a farmland protection fund for Henderson County.	Phase II	Current Staff Resources, Possible Consulting Funding, Annual Budget Allocations	BOC / Manager
B. Promote and expand voluntary agricultural districts to minimize land use conflicts and to protect farmers’ right to farm.	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources	Agricultural Advisory Committee, Soil & Water, Planning
C. Ensure that County-funded economic development programs and projects support farmland protection.	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources, Chamber Resources	BOC, Chamber
Recommendation A-02: Expand access for agricultural enterprises to economic development and tourism promotion programs and support services.
D. Explore ways to make County economic development incentives more readily available to agriculture-related businesses.	Phase I	Current Staff Resources, Chamber Resources	BOC / Manager, Chamber
E. Provide maximum benefits under Present Use Valuation Taxation program.	Phase I	Current Staff Resources	BOC / Manager
F. Provide ongoing training and technical assistance to farmers.	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources, Annual Budgetary Allocations	Cooperative Extension
G. Promote agricultural products that are produced in Henderson County.	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources, Chamber Resources	BOC / Manager, Chamber, Travel / Tourism, Cooperative Extension
Other Action Strategies
H. Identify an agricultural proponent or facilitator.	Phase I FY 2005-2006	Additional Staff Resources	BOC / Manager
Recommendation N-01: Minimize the potential for damage to personal property, infrastructure, and life due to flooding.
A. Adopt a Flood Hazard Prevention Ordinance.	Phase I Draft FY 2004-2005[2] Begin Enforcement FY 2005-2006	Current & Additional Staff Resources, Consulting Funding	BOC / Manager, Planning, NC Emergency Management, FEMA
B. Investigate measures to maintain the open and free flow of all perennial streams in the county.	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources	NC DOT, Planning, DENR, US Army Corps Engineers
Recommendation N-02: Protect Water Quality.
C. Support water quality protection and restoration programs in Henderson County.	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources, Intermittent Budget Allocations, Ongoing Funding for VWIN Program, Possible Outside Funding	Soil & Water, Cooperative Extension, DENR, Planning
D. Identify and incorporate Sedimentation and Erosion Control standards and requirements into County land development ordinances.	Phase I Draft FY 2005-2006[3] Begin Enforcement FY 2006-2007	Current Staff Resources & Consulting Funding for development. Additional Staff Resources for Enforcement.	BOC / Manager, Co. Engineer, Planning
E. Identify and incorporate Stormwater Management standards and requirements into County land development ordinances.	Phase I Draft FY 2005-2006[4] Implement FY 2006-2007	Current Staff Resources & Consulting Funding for development. Additional Staff Resources for Enforcement.	BOC / Manager, Co. Engineer, Planning
Recommendation N-03: Promote development patterns that respect sensitive mountainous areas.
Recommendation N-04: Identify and implement measures to protect the region’s air quality.
A. Implement Early Action Compact plan elements for Henderson County	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources	Environmental Advisory Committee
Recommendation N-05: Protect key sites of historical and cultural significance from development.
A. Conduct an inventory of historic / culturally significant sites / structures.	Phase II FY 2007-2008[5]	Current Staff Resources, State Staff Resources	Planning, Historical Society, NCDCR Historic Preservation Office
Recreation Summary
Recommendation R-01: Meet recreation needs through 2020.
A. Create a countywide recreation master plan.	Phase I FY 2006-2007	Current Staff Resources, Consulting Funding, Possible Outside Funding	Parks & Recreation, Planning, NC Div. Parks & Recreation, Other Federal & State Agencies
B. Utilize “Level of Service” analysis in recreation planning	Ongoing	Current Staff Resources	Parks & Recreation Planning
C. Enhance recreational space requirements within land development ordinances.	Phase I FY 2005-2006[6] (Refer to GMS-01.B)	Refer to GMS-01.B	Planning Parks & Recreation
D. Integrate public schools and recreation planning.	Ongoing (Via Master Plans)	Refer to R-01.A & PS.01.A	Parks & Recreation, Public Schools Planning
Recommendation R-02: Form a community and regional greenway network.
E. Integrate recreation and transportation planning.	Ongoing (Via Master Plans)	Refer to R-01.A & T-01.A	Parks & Recreation, TAC, MPO, NCDOT, Planning
F. Develop a strategy for the reuse of rail lines in Henderson County.	Phase I	Current Staff Resources, Consulting Funding