When the 3,500-acre Legasus development won exemptions from Jackson County’s development regulations two years ago, it raised the hackles of residents in the Tuckasegee community who claimed the hard-fought growth protections they ardently supported had failed when needed the most.

Now the disgruntled residents have raised the rallying cry again, this time contending that the mega development should be stripped of its vested rights after selling off portions of the land, whether through foreclosure or a voluntary move to raise cash and pay off debt.

“There are so many questions that have come up recently with foreclosures and land sales that totally change the dynamics of what the county granted Legasus vested rights for,” said Thomas Crowe, a member of the United Neighbors of Tuckaseigee.

Vested rights are an exemption intended to protect developers caught mid-stream by new ordinances. When Jackson’s new ordinances came along two years ago, Legasus argued they’d already spent a great deal designing a master plan and marketing the development to prospective buyers and should be allowed to proceed. Jackson County ultimately awarded vested rights to every developer that applied for them.

The Legasus development once called for 1,800 lots on 3,500 acres between Tuckasegee and Glenville spanning five separate tracts. With lot sales falling short of expectations, the company has had to sell off portions — including part of the proposed golf course. It is unclear whether new property owners will join forces with Legasus to carry out the existing development plan or will do their own thing.

“The question arises exactly what kind of rights do the new owners have? Can they come in under the auspices of the vested rights granted to Legasus initially?” Crowe asked. “We want to be on the front end of this new situation.”

A community forum on the issue of vested rights will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2, and will aim to answer these questions. Attorney DJ Gerken with the Southern Environmental Law Center will give a presentation and lead the discussion. The forum has been organized by the Western North Carolina Alliance and the United Neighbors of Tuckasegee.

“Those of us in the community as well as the county political leaders need to come up to speed on the whole issue of vested rights because of all the high-end developments here in Jackson County and in particular the Legasus development,” Crowe said.

When Art Pohl moved to Jackson County from Florida 10 years ago, he imagined a golden retirement filled with lazy days of playing golf. But after a few years of living the dream life, his wife wondered just how much golf one man could play.

“I was up here playing golf and enjoying myself and my wife said, ‘You are too young to do nothing. Why don’t you do something?’” recalled Pohl, 61.

Pohl, a residential developer and contractor by trade, had certainly come to the right place to dabble in his former profession. As he contemplated a return to the industry, he studied the housing market in Jackson County and saw plenty of gated mountain subdivisions catering to second-home owners and retirees.

What the county lacked, however, was housing geared toward the professional class who want to live close to the amenities of town. Sylva has seen almost zero growth in its housing stock over the past decade, with development instead focused on the surrounding countryside and mountaintops.

When shopping for land, Pohl stumbled onto the perfect setting for a town home development: a 19-acre tract tucked into a hillside close to downtown Sylva and off Savannah Drive. He created a master plan to build 32 townhomes on the tract. Three years later, the first four units of Laurel Ridge Town Homes have been finished and will hit the market this month.

“I’ve done something here that I hope will spark the town into thinking we need more housing to attract professional people to Sylva,” Pohl said. “I am trying to hit a market of people who don’t want to maintain yards, who want granite countertops and nice hardwood floors. They want a step up at an affordable price.”

At $299,000, the townhomes don’t exactly qualify as affordable housing. But they are at least more affordable than much of what’s on the market.

“They can enjoy this,” Pohl said as he spread his arms, “for what you would pay in the upscale developments for just a lot.”

Although the development is a 15-minute walk from downtown, it has the feel of a private mountain retreat. The townhomes overlook a forested hillside with long-range views peaking through the summer tree canopy. Pohl has set aside 11 acres of the 19-acre tract to be permanently protected.

“The open space gives you the big yard, gives you the view, gives you everything you might want with a five-acre lot but with none of the maintenance and none of the cost. All this is free,” Pohl said, gesturing to the protected forested hillside off a back deck.

Pohl is among the growing number of developers capitalizing on the concept of “cluster development.” Rather than slicing and dicing a tract of land into evenly distributed lots, the new paradigm calls for denser housing concentrated in one area with the rest left relatively undisturbed.

The property was originally zoned for one-acre lots. Pohl faced an uphill battle to get town approval of the denser town home development. Given the steep terrain, carving out one-acre lots across the tract would have required a major cut-and-fill operation and a series of retaining walls and new roads.

“It would have decimated the hillside and the lots would have been so expensive,” Pohl said.

The town ultimately viewed a cluster townhome development as the better option and approved his plan, albeit by a split vote of the town board.

“I took a hell of a gamble that I could go to the town and convince them that they needed it,” Pohl said. “I had some sleepless nights.”

During the year-long process, Pohl found an important ally in former town planner Jim Aust, a major advocate for increasing Sylva’s housing stock and for the cluster development concept.

When Pohl embarked on his development plan, the building boom was in full swing. But three years later, as his first four townhomes hit the market, times are different indeed.

“If the economy would have been where it was three years ago, they would be gone by now,” Pohl said.

Nonetheless, between professors at Western Carolina University and Southwestern Community College — not to mention the standard professional fare of doctors, lawyers, and bankers — Pohl sees plenty of demand for the moderately priced yet posh townhomes. Pohl also sees the townhomes appealing to retirees who don’t want to live in a gated subdivision but rather an in-town neighborhood.

Pohl doesn’t plan on starting to build the next units until the current ones are sold, which he thinks will be snatched up in a few months. Despite his wranglings with the town and the economic downturn, Pohl doesn’t regret coming out of retirement.

“I have absolutely loved this and can’t wait to start the second building. It has given me direction and given me a purpose in life again,” Pohl said. “I love building.”

An open house at the Laurel Ridge Town Homes will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 18. laurelridgetownhomes.com or 828.506.6641.

Mixed-use developments where residents live, work, shop and dine within a few block radius are popping up in cities around the nation, but have been slower to take hold in the mountains of Western North Carolina. One Macon County developer is aiming to bring the concept of mixed use to the mountains by turning a 22-acre parcel of land near downtown Franklin into a community where cars are hardly needed and everyone knows your name.

When it’s all said and done, Sanctuary Village will feature 150 residences in a variety of styles, from single-family homes to condos to live-work spaces. The development will have its own store fronts, as well as access to a grocery store, restaurants and a hospital all within a half mile in greater downtown Franklin.

“This is an in-town, urban neighborhood, much denser than what people are used to in mountain communities,” said Ben Brown, spokesman for the development.

If this trend does take hold in the mountains, it could be good news for preserving the natural environment.

“This is all about spreading out the options,” Brown said. “If you have X number of people coming to the region looking for mountain housing options, the more people we can convince to live close in and pick up a smaller footprint per person, the better we are for saving agricultural land and mountain slope land.”

Sanctuary Village is a far cry from the archetypal mountain housing development, with a focus on lots of acreage and big views. Some of these typical developments offer limited interaction with the community around them.

“You’ve wound up with a lot of gated communities that have no draw other than living right in them,” said Franklin Town Planner Mike Gruberman.

Building a community

For those who intend to make the mountains their home, big, gated developments can be isolating — something Sanctuary Village developer Tim Ryan experienced firsthand. Several years ago, Ryan and his wife, Iva, left their day jobs in South Florida to live on a large, working farm in Macon County. The Ryans loved the drastic change of pace, but after a while, still felt something was missing.

“Here in the mountains, we all come here to connect to the environment,” Tim said. “But you really need to connect with other people as well.”

Tim envisioned a place where people live in close quarters with their neighbors and eat, work and shop in close proximity. The community model, known as new urbanism, espouses mixed-use development, and has grown in popularity in the last few years.

“It truly creates an opportunity for community, much more than throwing a bunch of houses together,” Tim said.

Sanctuary Village is in its first phase, and the house the Ryans reside in is the only one built so far in the development. But even from preliminary plans, it’s clear the community is anything but thrown together. The development will feature small cottages to large homes to condos ranging from 700 square feet to 3,000 square feet, each built with one of a dozen architectural styles that reflect the mountain environment.

Seniors will likely be a big market for Sanctuary Village.

“As people age, they may want to move closer to services but don’t want to leave Franklin,” said Iva Ryan. “They want to be in a community where neighbors know them and care about them.”

But like the housing choices, the population of Sanctuary Village and other mixed-use communities is often diverse.

“We’re finding these communities appeal to different ages, backgrounds, and interests of people who want to connect,” said Iva.

Connectivity is evident in the design of the development through things like shared open spaces.

“Common areas are an extension of the home,” said Iva. “You don’t want to get people stuck in a house, you want them to feel comfortable so they’ll engage.”

Mutual benefit

The concept of a traditional neighborhood development like Sanctuary Village has so rarely been proposed in the mountains that the town of Franklin had to adopt new zoning ordinances to accommodate it.

“The town had not had anything like this before,” Gruberman said. “This was our first shot at what is called a traditional neighborhood development, and there was a fairly lengthy process involved because it wound up creating a new zoning district.”

With the help of plenty of public input, the town created a new neighborhood development zoning category with unique specifications.

“Walkability was the chief issue,” Gruberman said. “The development must be a minimum number of acres and within a half mile walking distance of the downtown area. It’s intended to reduce dependence on cars.”

Pulling together enough property to create Sanctuary Village was a challenge, since most areas around small mountain downtowns are already built up. But Ryan finally managed to piece together several different parcels because he truly believed Franklin was the right place for the development.

“Franklin is a very easy community to live in,” Ryan said. “You can live here and not need a car.”

Downtown is a big selling point of the development, which makes for a beneficial partnership, said Brown.

“It’s really selling the town of Franklin as an amenity,” Brown said. “The better off the town is, the better of the development is. There’s a built in incentive for the town and developer to work together, and for the developer to support Main Street businesses and help strengthen Main Street opportunities.”

Catching on

Since new urbanism hasn’t been tested in the mountains, there’s no guarantee it will catch on with buyers. But Tim has one major advantage — Sanctuary Village provides an option that isn’t widely available in the seven counties west of Asheville.

“People are still going to want to live in suburban areas and on mountain tops, but in the current market there are way, way more mountain top lots and suburban options for people than there are in town options,” Brown said.

The speed at which Sanctuary Village is being developed has slowed in the wake of the economic downturn.

“We’re moving carefully — this is not a time that banks lend money to developers,” said Ryan.

But Ryan believes that when the economy picks back up, many people will emerge with different, simpler attitude toward life — and Sanctuary Village will be poised to attract them.

“(The economy) really has forced people to rethink priorities and get back to simpler, more sustainable approach to living,” said Ryan.

Brown said the Ryans are “heavily invested in the idea that these in-town, traditional neighborhood designs that are walkable, mixed-use communities will be the most desirable kind of project for people to buy into.”

A group of Haywood residents appealed to county commissioners for an ordinance assessing the impacts of large developments.

The ordinance would require large developers to assess the impacts of their projects on surrounding communities and the environment. On Monday night (Feb. 16), the group called Haywood Community Alliance presented the board of commissioners with signatures of nearly 400 county residents who support the idea.

“Such an asset review would provide local government and citizens with important information about anticipated effects on natural resources of the area, as well as existing infrastructure,” Lynn Jeffries, the group’s chair, told commissioners.

The board agreed to send the proposed ordinance to the planning board to review. The planning board could use that ordinance, or draft one of its own.

The request to commissioners marks the first time a group of citizens has formally asked them to take action on development. Recent regional planning projects, like the Mountain Landscapes Initiative or the Haywood Growth Readiness Roundtable, have emphasized the importance of local government involvement, but have stopped short of formally requesting that commissioners address the issue.

A year-long effort led up to Haywood Alliance’s request to the county. The group first showed commissioners an initial set of signatures they collected, but that generated little response from the board.

“We weren’t seeing any action; nothing moving forward,” Jeffries said.

But Jeffries says her group was convinced commissioners were interested in addressing growth and development. Last year, commissioners extended an invitation to various community clubs offering the county’s assistance with planning. The offer had no takers.

“We felt the commissioners last year had reached out to these clubs and said ‘okay, who wants to have this dialogue?’” Jeffries said. “So we felt they were already pursuing community input and trying to find a vehicle where community members could give input to commissioners.”

Jeffries said the issue got put on the backburner when election season rolled around, but that her group continued to engage in talks with the county to form a proposal and encourage commissioners to act.

She said that development issues have somewhat dropped from the radar as the economy has taken center stage, but that a period of slow development is an ideal time to address issues of growth.

“Let’s take this lull time as the perfect opportunity, when we won’t have any huge developments coming down the pike right this second,” Jeffries said.

Commissioners haven’t promised they will adopt the proposed ordinance — only that the county will take a look at it. The process may not be easy. Chairman Kirk Kirkpatrick said he is well aware, and supportive, of the deeply rooted sentiment of autonomy over your property that has made passing other planning initiatives in the region a challenge.

“I would look at (the ordinance) with a keen eye, simply because people around here have worked a long time for what they have,” Kirkpatrick said. “I do not want to see additional restrictions placed on those people who are private landowners.”

Jeffries said planning efforts don’t have to infringe on personal property rights, however.

“I do feel like that’s a challenge to getting this message across, but I don’t think it has to be,” she said. “I think you can find a consensus where we can exercise our personal property rights with the understanding that we live in a community, we don’t live in isolation. The things that we do affect our neighbors, and will affect our future.”

When Jackson County commissioners passed strict mountainside development regulations last year, opponents pledged to get even come election time.

By Jennifer Garlesky • Staff Writer

Macon County’s eight-month moratorium on the permitting of recreational vehicles in the floodplain will be lifted next month.

By Jennifer Garlesky • Staff Writer

Macon County residents will have the opportunity to weigh in on amendments to the county’s flood damage prevention and watershed ordinances at a public hearing on Feb. 11.

By Jennifer Garlesky • Staff Writer

Rachel Upchurch wants to protect the mountains that tower throughout Jackson County however; the Smokey Mountain Elementary student also wants to see more houses and shopping centers built throughout the Qualla community.

When back-to-back tropical storms hit the mountains with heavy rains in 2004, the saturated soils triggered more than 140 landslides. Some were small, others big, but all pointed to how vulnerable some mountain slopes are to the forces of nature — namely gravity.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Frank Singleton, the spokesman for the 4,500-acre proposed Cataloochee Wilderness Resort in Haywood County, stopped by The Smoky Mountain News office to answer some questions about the planned development. Singleton said the ball is definitely rolling on the project, with announcements about retail operations set to come in the next few weeks and a public presentation planned for the end of January. He addressed public opposition to the project, the developers’ appearance at a county commissioners meeting on Dec. 17, and the involvement of Dean Moses, a Haywood County businessman notorious for questionable business dealings he made here six years ago.