Haywood County commissioners approved two funding recommendations from its Affordable Housing Development Committee that will increase affordable housing stock at no cost to Haywood County taxpayers. 

Consultants finally delivered to Haywood County commissioners a report on the results of a secretive, long-awaited “listening post exercise” meant to chart Haywood County’s economic development vision — revealing in the process that there was no input from average working-class residents, an omission that may prompt some to question the applicability of the report’s findings despite the project’s tagline of “stronger together.” 

Appraisers are still in the field putting the finishing touches on the upcoming countywide property reappraisal set to take effect Jan. 1, 2025, but Haywood County commissioners are already battling misinformation about why it’s happening and what effect it could have on next year’s property tax bills. 

Commissioners voted unanimously June 3 to accept Haywood County Manager Bryant Morehead’s proposed annual budget which, in spite of inflation, forthcoming debt for a jail expansion and the loss of a major employer last year, contains no tax increase.

With jail expansion debt payments coming on the books and lingering questions about one of the county’s biggest taxpayers, Haywood County Manager Bryant Morehead presented commissioners with a conservative budget that funds some critical needs, but not much else. 

Haywood County Commissioners got some great news Oct. 16 that will help the community ameliorate the effects of a red-hot real estate market on local housing affordability and availability.

Earl Lanning was just a little boy in Haywood County during the 1930s, he developed three ambitions.

“I used to go see all these World War I airplane movies — war movies,” he said. “I wanted to be a flyer, I wanted to be an American cowboy, and I wanted to be in the field of art in some way. I didn’t know at the time what was going to be.”