Editor’s note

As Tony Dillard notes in this guest column, we’ve printed two other opinion pieces over the last two weeks by Waynesville aldermen Chuck Dickson and Jon Feichter regarding this annexation and the issue of whether these housing developments fit into the character of Waynesville. It’s unusual for The Smoky Mountain News to then give this much space to a third opinion piece, but given the importance of this issue — how will we grow — we decided to give Mr. Dillard the opportunity to voice his concerns. To note, Dillard is a private citizen in Waynesville.

— Scott McLeod, SMN Editor 

I appreciate my colleague taking the time to explain his vote (“Why I voted to annex Queen’s Farm,” April 22 SMN) to annex Queen’s Farm. These are the kinds of decisions that deserve a full and open discussion. 

We agree on many of the challenges facing our community. Growth is happening. Affordable housing is scarce. And we have a responsibility to provide services without placing an unnecessary burden on taxpayers.

Where we differ is on what this decision represents. 

To the Editor:

In light of the shortcomings in the Town of Waynesville Development Plan surfaced by Queen’s Farm phases 1 and 2, it might be a good time to look back to the 1990s when the Old Asheville Highway was slated for improvement — from where Lowe’s is now to Downtown Waynesville.

That windy two-lane road into town was scheduled to be straightened and widened. NCDOT spent an enormous amount of time and effort to engage the community in order to learn of concerns and needs before drawing up a plan.

On April 14, the Waynesville Town Council voted 4-1 to annex the Queen’s Farm/Valleywood Farms Phase 2 property into the town limits. As part of the Town of Waynesville, an annexed property receives services, is subject to zoning and other town regulations and pays property taxes. 

I voted to annex Phase 2 of Valleywood Farms, and I want to tell you why. 

A stretch of land along Ratcliff Cove Road — quiet, rural, long-defined by fields, creek-bottoms and generational ties — became the focal point of a larger question April 14, as Waynesville Town Council took up an annexation request that would determine not just what gets built there, but how the town chooses to grow. 

A low-flying plane circling his property was the first sign. The passes were frequent enough to be noticed. Haywood County farmer and longtime Farm Bureau President Don Smart knew immediately what that kind of attention usually means. 

In the old days, Smart said, they’d have been looking for illegal cannabis or tobacco plantings, but that wasn’t why the plane was tracing slow, deliberate circles in the sky over his farm. Two weeks later, confirmation of his suspicions arrived in writing.

More than 18 months after Hurricane Helene caused roughly $60 billion in damage across Western North Carolina, only about 12% of federal recovery funding has arrived — as FEMA delays persist and questions about the agency’s future mount — leaving displaced families in campers, local governments with budget gaps and Gov. Josh Stein proposing another $792 million in state spending to keep a stalled federal recovery from slipping further behind.  

After having their Haywood County home destroyed by three separate floods, Michelle Lee, her husband Roger and their son Cheyenne have found new digs on higher ground. 

The land they had lived on was in the Lee family for generations. Roger’s 71 years have played out on the wooded patch near a normally calm creek that slipped its banks and wreaked havoc on the property three times — in 2004 when Hurricanes Frances and Ivan arrived; in 2021, Fred; and in 2024, Helene. 

The U.S. Census Bureau on Feb. 2 announced that it was cutting four of six 2026 nationwide test sites aimed to inform the 2030 decennial count — Colorado Springs, Fort Apache Reservation, western Texas and Western North Carolina. It will now conduct operations in only Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina. 

Jackson County commissioners have approved a sweeping new conservation framework designed to balance growth with preservation across some of the most ecologically significant lands in Western North Carolina, located in the southern part of the county.