Bethany Fuller | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | Oct. 31, 2007

Zoning in Iredell County is becoming tricky business.
It seems like every month, county commissioners hear impassioned pleas from residents asking them to recognize the community’s property rights over the property owner’s zoning (or rezoning) plans.

In September, the board heard from neighbors protesting a mixed-use development off N.C. Highway 150. Next week, it will be noise levels at the Mooresville Business Park.

“Zoning is a balancing act,” said Iredell County Planning and Development Director Ron Smith. “You are never really going to please people all the time.”

After all the arguments, the personal views of commissioners and public policy combine to determine the outcome, said David Owens, a professor in the School of Government at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

“The law really sets only the extremes,” he said. “There is a political judgment county commissioners have to make on what is fair.”

By its nature, zoning recognizes the need for someone to watch out for what the community needs, County Commissioner Ken Robertson said.

“By virtue of the fact that we have zoning proves having pure 100 percent property rights is not in the general welfare of society,” Robertson said. “In most of these cases, I could take the other side and argue pretty passionately. These are tough votes.”

It is one of the hardest jobs commissioners do, he said.
David Neill, a lawyer in Raleigh who specializes in state and local government cases, said commissioners have a lot of latitude in these matters.

“Zoning is done at their discretion based on the general health of the community,” he explained.

To put it into the blandest terms, zoning is a planning device used to control land use.

Neill said people want to be able to do what they want with their property, but get nervous when their neighbors have the same mentality.

“Zoning is seen as a precursor to change,” Neill said. “Generally folks are scared of change - even me.”

Governing bodies have a set of structured requirements when rezoning a piece of property, he said.

Neill said he’s never seen Iredell County’s or Statesville’s land-use plan or zoning ordinance, but he said all zoning ordinances have similar elements like public hearings and notices.

“The devil is often in the details,” he said.

Most county commissioners interviewed said they were big personal property advocates.

A person should be allowed to do what they want with their property as long as it doesn’t hurt their neighbors, said Commissioner Godfrey Williams.

“There has been some tough ones over the years,” said Commissioner Steve Johnson. “The decision-making has to be fact-driven.”

One of the first steps in the zoning process is checking the proposed use against the land-use plan, said Statesville Assistant Planning Director Sherry Ashley.

A land-use plan shows what government officials project a parcel of land being used as, and, in many cases, it shows where the county expects to grow.

Smith said when his department reviews a rezoning application, it has to sort through several different factors, such as how does the project affect schools, and what, if any, role do utilities play.

“Common sense is a big one as well,” he said.

If the property and land-use plans mesh, then the planning department checks the usage against the zoning ordinance.
If it doesn’t mesh, the department and commissioners consider changing the land-use plan.

Not all such plans are the same, Owens said. There are about 500 different zoning ordinances in the state.
Smith said the land-use plan isn’t set in stone, which is why commissioners have voted to change it 60 times in the past 10 years.

As the existing land-use plan gets older, county residents can expect more amendments. Land-use plans need to be updated every five years, Owens said.

A new land-use plan for Iredell County is in the planning stages.
By the time rezoning cases reach county commissioners or a town board, they have undergone a thorough review process in which they are scrutinized, photographed and mapped out.

Iredell County Commission Chairman Marvin Norman said commissioners have to look at the facts with an eye toward the future.

If they rezone that agricultural area to single-family residential now, will the schools be able to handle all the new students? Are there any conditions the board can place on the property to make the proposal work without hurting the surrounding property?

“I try to look at what’s been there before and listen to what they have to say,” Norman said.

Robertson said commissioners try to do their best with the information they are given. He said he always tries to do his homework before the meeting.

Sometimes people will hand the board information at the last minute, making it hard to process while listening to someone testify, Norman said.

If local residents dont like their local town boards or the commissioners’ rezoning policies, there is something they can do, Neill said.

“The solution is the ballot box,” Neill said.

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