Preservation in the News

Legislation on mountainside development sent for study

By Jordan Schrader

RALEIGH — Objections from mountain Republicans have derailed the proposed statewide regulation of mountainside development.

Democratic Reps. Phil Haire and Ray Rapp said Tuesday they have agreed to put the issue before a study commission made up of lawmakers and state officials.

The bill they sponsored, aimed at preventing landslides, is dead until the legislature reconvenes next spring.

If a new bill emerges from a study commission’s report, it might keep the requirement that local governments regulate construction on slopes greater than 40 percent and those shown by landslide-hazard maps to be dangerous.

Or, as Rep. Mitch Gillespie wants, it might start from scratch and come up with a more limited plan to hold the state over until 2014, when state geologists expect to finish mapping landslide hazards in 19 western counties.

Opponents pointed out Tuesday that only Macon County has been fully mapped.

Gillespie, the Marion Republican who led the opposition in the House environment committee, said the proposal would burden unprepared counties and homeowners who want to build on their property.

But sending it to a study commission, Gillespie said, “will give every one of the 19 counties an opportunity to have input into this bill.”

Sponsors Haire, of Sylva, and Rapp, of Mars Hill, worked for months to bring developers and others on board, holding meetings in Western North Carolina and eventually scaling back the bill’s restrictions to address objections.

They said Tuesday that extra vetting would help.

But Haire warned that dallying lawmakers would be responsible for future damage caused by landslides like the ones that killed a woman in Maggie Valley in 2003 or forced Waynesville residents from their condominiums in 2005.

“If we know that we can make maps,” Haire said, “… and if we permit development to go on those slopes without advising people that they need to take different measures … and that person loses their property or their life, then we’re not doing our job.”