Here’s the note from French Broad Riverkeeper Hartwell Carson. Hartwell, can you sum up for us what the bottom line is? What’s next?:
A large contingent of the public that showed up to support increasing stream buffers widths in the City of Asheville, but the Planning and Zoning Commission voted 5 to 1 to reduce the number of parcels requiring buffers by 75%.
Stream buffers are part of the City of Asheville’s revisions to the storm water ordinance. City staff started the meeting by describing in depth how buffers play a very important role in protecting water quality and stream habitat.
The state of North Carolina requires buffers of 30ft for all developments that disturb over an acre. The current City of Asheville rule requires stream buffers on all areas of disturbance, with exemptions for some smaller parcels and for many items such as utilities and road crossings. Passing buffers that exceed the state minimum in Asheville was seen as particularly important for stream protections, because only 25% of the parcels that are affected by the buffer are over an acre. The rule proposal by the Planning and Zoning Commission would leave an overwhelming majority of the streams in Asheville unprotected.
Research from other municipalities shows stream buffers around the state routinely range from 30 to 100ft (see attached fact sheet). The science and trends across the country support a move toward larger buffers as well as the need for buffers that cover large and small developments.
According to data from the Division of Water Quality the water quality in the French Broad Watershed and the City of Asheville has decreased over the past several years, with sediment or dirt being the leading cause of this water quality decline. Stream buffers play a very important role towards preventing this sediment from entering streams. The vote by planning and zoning if passed by City Council would reduce the number of parcels that will require buffers by75% and reduce the acreage of buffers by 25%. Local developer Regina Trantham stated “she thinks it is not hard to have 50ft buffers and that is the standard we should set to protect our streams.” Information of presented at the meeting seemed to agree that at least 30ft buffers were needed across the board to remove about 50% of pollution.
2 Comments
From the report above, Karen Cragnolin of RiverLink is apparently right about one thing: there was one vote against the motion. But then again, from the report above, five votes were for it.
Karen, when you move to Asheville from Biltmore Forest, we’ll start listening to your opinion on how Asheville should regulate. You would be welcome here, in the city, near the French Broad River.
And when you show some positive, active interest in anything in the river area in addition to parks — for example, bringing in and supporting businesses, art studios, employees, residents — we’ll listen more attentively to your opinion about how near to urban streams these people and their homes and livelihoods should be allowed.
We wish you would join the hundreds of property owners, artists, business people, workers — and yes, environmentalists — who are working day and night to revitalize all of the river area, and stop working against us at every turn.
For now, we’ll listen to your opinion about parks.
THE MOTION THAT WAS PRESENTED BY THE CHAIR OF PLANNING AND ZONING WAS TYPED AND PRE PREPARED. TOM BYERS THE PREVIOUS CHAIR VOTED AGAINST THE MOTION. THE PLANNIG AND ZONING COMMISSION SEEMS TO BE SAYING WE CANT HAVE BUFFERS AND GREENWAYS AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING – DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE ONE OR TWO OF THOSE?