Murphy – Land use ordinances are a bit like tools in a toolbox, according to attorney John Noor.
The key to opening that toolbox is planning – specifically, the adoption of a comprehensive plan for Cherokee County – which is an option a majority of commissioners have thus far been unwilling to seriously consider implementing.
Noor, an attorney with Roberts & Stevens PA of Asheville, was recruited for his environmental expertise as the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners continues to explore ways to combat noise from Exponential Digital’s unenclosed crypto mining operations.
Noor told commissioners Monday the state General Assembly requires a county to go through a comprehensive planning process if local leaders want to make reforms to land use.
“I am not the solution to all things land use and zoning, I cannot fix the crypto mine and I cannot address a lot of the things you may have heard this evening, but what I can do is outline what your options are,” Noor said.
“If you want to use any of those tools, you have to go through a comprehensive planning process. As of July 1 of this year, because you don’t have a comprehensive plan, those tools are just not available to you.”
Commissioner Cal Stiles noted that Cherokee County had a comprehensive plan made in 2016, but the board of commissioners chose not to implement it. In December, Stiles said he believed the board was “remiss in not putting that out and at least trying to go forward on it.”
Noor briefly discussed other topics, such as a possible update to the existing Cherokee County noise ordinance and the potential for private litigation, but his presentation largely focused on planning and land use. The session was, at times, a seemingly fundamental review and explanation of what planning is and what it is not.
“Planning is a discussion where you go out into your community. A lot of different communities do this with a series of listening sessions ... to see what their citizens want,” he said.
Noor took a variety of questions from commissioners and the audience, including questions by
Stiles asking for a distinction between zoning and land use ordinances. Noor acknowledged that zoning is an unpopular word in counties like Cherokee, but said its relation to land use is largely a case of semantics.
“The reality of whether you call it zoning or you call it land use regulation, we are talking about the same thing,” Noor said.
“But (zoning) can be as simple as, ‘We’re going to allow everything everywhere.’ That’s zoning, too.”
In June, the commissioners voted 4-1 to allow county attorney Darryl Brown to explore the possibility of a narrowly focused planning board, which could lead to some type of land use ordinance focused on unenclosed crypto mining operations.
In a separate vote, the board voted 3-2 against a motion by Commissioner Jan Griggs to establish a separate nine-person planning committee that would have acted as a broader advisory group for the county. Chairman Dan Eichenbaum said he was “absolutely against” such a planning committee.
“When you develop a planning board, a planning committee of this kind, you have established a permanent group of individuals who can then run around the county doing whatever they want to do, observing whatever they want, and coming back and deciding among themselves, what it is they want to start making plans for,” Eichenbaum said. “I think that is a dangerous precedent to have, and I’m not in favor of doing that. ... Obviously, they have no power to implement plans, but they still have the right to go around making plans.”
Planning historically has been off-limits for Eichenbaum.
The Cherokee County Tomorrow committee worked for two years on a long-term comprehensive county plan, which the board of commissioners addressed in January 2016. The board voted 4-1 to accept the plan presented to them, but commissioners declined to provide any input or promise to implement any of its suggestions.
Stiles said at the time he wanted to hold a work session with the committee and discuss the contents of the plan. His motion died for lack of a second.
“I think they did a real good job on this and gave us a good road map,” Stiles said at the time. “They spent a considerable amount of time on this, and we owe them the respect (to discuss the issues) because they’ve worked hard.”
Instead, Eichenbaum made another motion in the form of a typed statement, one that thanked everyone for their hard work and simultaneously dissolved the committee. The motion also accepted the plan as a “research and reference tool only” and gave “no consent or approval in any way for the implementation of any portion of this plan, its goals or its objectives.”
The final point declared that the county would entertain future projects and ideas as long as they do not involve eminent domain abuse or restrict private property rights with zoning or other rules.
“I advise a board in a different part of the mountains ... and one of the commissioners says, ‘You know, my right to use my fist ends at about an inch before your nose,’ ” Noor said Monday. “And he uses it in the context of land use and zoning because he says, ‘Yeah, I should be able to do what I want to do with my property, but I shouldn’t be able to do it in a way that makes it impossible for you to use yours.’ ”