Planning board opposes flood plain ordinance change
Downtown Franklin, North Carolina.
Harrison Keely photo
In a turn of events for the volunteers and members of the public that have been showing up in an effort to preserve Macon County’s floodplain ordinances, the planning board has opposed the third and final recommended change up for consideration. The move comes after months of outspoken opposition to the measure and a two-month delay in addressing the proposed ordinance revision due to canceled meetings.
“We feel that available information and data unequivocally indicate that downgrading the existing protections will introduce unacceptable risks and undermine long-term goals espoused by the Macon County Board of Commissioners,” the Water Quality Advisory Committee said of the proposed changes to the Flood Damage Prevention ordinance in a report on the issue.
At its Jan. 2 meeting, the planning board was set to discuss the third of three possible ordinance revisions pertaining to Macon’s floodplain that have been up for consideration over the course of the last year.
The planning board was originally set to consider the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance at its November meeting, but because the board failed to produce a quorum, it could not vote on a recommendation. The board’s December meeting was later canceled.
After two months of delay, the board took up the proposed revision to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance at its January meeting. The change to the ordinance under consideration would have allowed placement of fill on up to 25% of the flood fringe area of any property, where previously the ordinance prevented placement of any fill on properties in the floodplain.
Numerous residents, along with the Water Quality Advisory Committee (WQAC) have voiced their staunch opposition to the change saying that, among other issues, fill in the floodplain would lead to worse, more dangerous outcomes during flood events.
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The WQAC is charged by the county commission with providing technical information and making recommendations related to proposed changes to Macon County’s Soil Erosion and Sedimentation Control Ordinance, Water Supply Watershed Protection Ordinance and the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. It is made up of nine volunteer experts.
“We firmly oppose this change, and instead advocate for a variance process to allow for exceptions to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, while keeping floodplain protections intact,” the WQAC wrote in its report on potential impacts of the ordinance revision.
During the meeting, Planning Board Member Michael Mathis made a motion that the board oppose the proposed change to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. The vote passed with only two board members dissenting.
“The motion I made aligns with a statement prepared by the Water Quality Advisory Committee, which consists of environmental experts whose opinions I value,” Mathis said of his reasoning for opposing the ordinance change. “Moreover, I spoke with a representative from the Floodplain Mapping Office of the North Carolina Department of Emergency Management, who informed me that the state’s Model Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance is currently being updated. I don’t believe it’s wise for the county to amend its floodplain ordinance before the state completes its updates to the model ordinance.”
According to the WQAC’s report on possible ramifications of the proposed change to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, the 100-year flood zone has flooded multiple times in this century alone.
“The Macon County Floodplain Damage Prevention Ordinance (FDPO) was motivated by extensive losses associated with tropical storms Frances and Ivan in 2004,” the WQAC wrote in its report. “In Western North Carolina, those storms caused 11 deaths and more than $200 million in total damages. Each of the two storms — which occurred ten days apart — met criteria for 500-year flood events at the time.”
The WQAC also found that the proposed change would encourage the loss of farmland, which runs counter to the county’s stated purpose in the Farmland Protection Plan it adopted earlier this year.
“The most productive farmland that we have is the bottomlands of this county; we don’t have a great deal of it, and in North Carolina, we are losing farmland faster than any state in the nation,” Ken McCaskill of Macon County Farm Bureau told commissioners at their June meeting.
Macon County residents observe flooding caused by Hurricane Helene. Bob Scott photo
McCaskill, also a member of the WQAC, has been a vehement opponent of the proposed ordinance revisions.
In its report, the WQAC also outlined potential risks to water quality and ecosystem function, economic viability and costs to taxpayers.
Following the vote, the planning board’s official recommendation to the county commission was not to revise the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance.
The planning board’s vote is the first victory for the WQAC and the members of public who have been opposed to revising the ordinances. However, this vote is just the first step.
It is the responsibility of the planning board to make recommendations to the county commission, but ultimately, final decisions about county ordinances lie with that board. And while the commission generally takes the recommendations of the planning board to heart, it is under no obligation to ultimately heed that guidance.
One of the three ordinance revisions has already been passed by the board of commissioners. In August the board voted to change the required land disturbance from half an acre to an acre before any plans are required for soil erosion control on a project in the Soil Erosion Sedimentation Control Ordinance. But commissioners held off on final decisions on the Water Supply Watershed Protection and Flood Damage Prevention ordinances until January.
Thanks to the outpouring of public opposition to revision of the ordinances, then Chairman Gary Shields decided to slow the process of changing the ordinances late this summer when the second two came before the commission and instead of holding a vote, sent the ordinances back to the planning board for review saying the commission would take them back up in January.
But now, with two official recommendations in hand from the planning board — the latest opposing changes to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance and one recommendation in support of a change to the Water Supply Watershed Protection Ordinance — it appears the commission may not consider the second and third proposed ordinance revisions at all.
According to County Manager Warren Cabe, in preliminary conversations regarding the agenda for the January meeting, Chairman Josh Young indicated he was not planning on putting the discussion of the floodplain ordinances on the agenda, and that he was not planning on putting them on any agenda in the foreseeable future.
“Obviously that could change if anything arises that would need the Board of Commissioner’s consideration,” Cabe said.
The agenda for the Jan. 14 regular meeting of the Macon County Commission will not be finalized until later this week.
Young, chairman of the commission as of December when he succeeded Shields, serves as liaison to the planning board, and originally proposed changes to the ordinances. As chairman, it is now Young’s responsibility to formulate the commission’s meeting agenda each month, run meetings and call for votes when necessary.
While Young’s ownership of property in the area affected by the ordinance revisions raised questions from members of the public about his motives for the proposal, he said he has deed restricted his land so that he will not benefit from the proposal.
Many members of the public, as well as the WQAC, have noted that decreased regulations in the floodplain could lead to worse conditions during natural disasters and more dangerous work for emergency service workers. This became especially poignant after Hurricane Helene ravaged much of Western North Carolina with severe flooding and wind damage in September.
“All of this is very, very important stuff, and I really just have one question. Why are we doing this right now?” said one speaker at the Oct. 3 planning board meeting. “Our region has suffered one of the worst catastrophes that I can think of… this can wait. Our people are suffering.”
While Macon County fared better than other WNC counties to the east, it was not spared the worst effects of natural disaster. On Friday, Sept. 27, Sheriff Deputy Jim Lau’s truck was seen submerged in floodwaters. His body was recovered the next day. Lau was the only confirmed death in Macon related to Hurricane Helene.
“Our mountains protect us, but they also funnel all that water into places that people don’t think of as being dangerous,” said Sarah Johnson during the October planning board meeting. “If you have any possibility of preventing it now, now is when you do that. Because I guarantee you that Asheville, Canton, Clyde, the rest of them, if they could go back a little bit and rethink some of the things, they would.”
Hurricane Helene caused over 100 deaths in Western North Carolina and an estimated $58 billion in damages.
“While other counties just to the east of us that were impacted by this storm are looking at ways to make their communities more resilient to these type of extreme flooding events, we have heard nothing from the Macon County Planning Board or the County Commission on ways to strengthen our community against extreme flooding,” the WQAC said in its letter. “Instead, the board is considering efforts to weaken existing protections.”
