As a land developer, general contractor and real estate broker here in the Madison and Buncombe county area, I feel that is very important to protect our slopes from over development. However, I think it needs to be done with scientific fact and not emotion. On a recent visit to a meeting of the Madison Co planning board where they were reviewing and rewriting subdivision ordinances for the county, I was shocked and pretty much amazed that the only people in attendance and on the board had no technical background or experience in the field to qualify them. Let me back up and say that they did work very hard on these issues, which is very appreciated, and shame on the contractors in the area for not appearing and making their voice heard. But, to tighten the rules to such a point that it restricts and makes growth cost prohibitive, because you do not want change or more people moving in is simply not a good argument. You moved and now live in this area, because of a great environment and to say, well that’s great for me, but I do not want to share it, DON’T MOVE HERE, or, DON’T MOVE HERE UNLESS ITS UNDER MY TERMS is simply absurd. It is reminiscent of an article I read online yesterday where the Asheville City Council was voting on banning gated communities, I’ll find it and post it later… Anyway, all I’m saying, is yes lets protect or mountains and our environment, buts lets be sensible about it and use fact as the basis for our decisions.
Please refer to the full article from Asheville-Citizen Times below
Opposition kills steep slope rules
Legislation on mountainside development sent for study
by Jordan Schrader, JSCHRADE@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
published June 27, 2007 12:15 am
RALEIGH — Objections from mountain Republicans have derailed the proposed statewide regulation of mountainside development.
Democratic Reps. Phil Haire and Ray Rapp said Tuesday they have agreed to put the issue before a study commission made up of lawmakers and state officials.
The bill they sponsored, aimed at preventing landslides, is dead until the legislature reconvenes next spring.
If a new bill emerges from a study commission’s report, it might keep the requirement that local governments regulate construction on slopes greater than 40 percent and those shown by landslide-hazard maps to be dangerous.
Or, as Rep. Mitch Gillespie wants, it might start from scratch and come up with a more limited plan to hold the state over until 2014, when state geologists expect to finish mapping landslide hazards in 19 western counties.
Opponents pointed out Tuesday that only Macon County has been fully mapped.
Gillespie, the Marion Republican who led the opposition in the House environment committee, said the proposal would burden unprepared counties and homeowners who want to build on their property.
But sending it to a study commission, Gillespie said, “will give every one of the 19 counties an opportunity to have input into this bill.”
Sponsors Haire, of Sylva, and Rapp, of Mars Hill, worked for months to bring developers and others on board, holding meetings in Western North Carolina and eventually scaling back the bill’s restrictions to address objections.
They said Tuesday that extra vetting would help.
But Haire warned that dallying lawmakers would be responsible for future damage caused by landslides like the ones that killed a woman in Maggie Valley in 2003 or forced Waynesville residents from their condominiums in 2005.
“If we know that we can make maps,” Haire said, “… and if we permit development to go on those slopes without advising people that they need to take different measures … and that person loses their property or their life, then we’re not doing our job.”
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October 9th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Are Your Life and Property in Danger?
Western North Carolina Landslide Confidential
According to legislative findings and geologic investigations, landslides in Western North Carolina are serious and determinable threats to lives and property.
In February 2005 the state passed the Hurricane Recovery Act. The General Assembly found: Hurricanes Frances and Ivan wrought havoc upon Western North Carolina impacting the region on a scale not experienced before in that area of the State. The President issued two federal disaster declarations for the Western Region of the State. During Hurricane Ivan, the community of Peeks Creek was devastated by a debris flow triggered by heavy rains. The debris flow traveled speeds as great as 33 miles per hour for two and a quarter miles from the top of Fishhawk mountain. Five persons were killed and 15 homes destroyed by the flow that was estimated to be several hundred feet wide and up to 40 feet high. Other communities that were particularly hard hit by landslides include the Starnes Creek area in Buncombe County, the Little Pine area in Madison County, the White Laurel community in Watauga County, and the Bear Rock Estates in Henderson County. Further…people could not know the landslide risks associated with their housing location because such maps are not readily available. The state needs to…prepare landslide mapping for the region so that homes may be built in safe areas.
Extensive studies by the North Carolina Geologic Survey show that much of the salable land in Western North Carolina is susceptible to landslides. These areas include: steep slopes, usually greater than 30 degrees, embankments or fills, cut or excavated slopes, hillside depressions or hollows near streams and springs, eroded or undercut streams or river banks, areas below steep mountain slopes, areas on hills or mountainsides where runoff accumulates, disturbed or modified slopes on mountainsides, areas where roads cross drainage or streams on mountainsides.
Western North Carolina Realtors are currently marketing and selling this “unmapped” and potentially unsafe slope property to buyers who have no knowledge of the personal and financial risks. Investors receive no fair warning either in advertising or sales contracts that slope failures are an ever present threat to real estate values. Unless Realtors are legally compelled to disclose these significant risks, landslides will remain a well protected industry secret.
Anti-fraud statutes are clear. It is illegal to profit by schemes or tricks, by issuing untrue statements, by failing to disclose material facts, or by participating in deceitful and fraudulent business practices.
What isn’t clear is why the Western North Carolina real estate industry is allowed to conceal material facts from their clients. How can Realtors offer and sell hazardous land as a “no risk” investment? This legal question can only be answered by Roy Cooper, Attorney General of North Carolina.
Lynne Vogel
http://www.wncsos.com
November 19th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Western North Carolina Mountain Slope Construction. Is It Safe?
Gambling with the Unknown
Fifteen Western North Carolina counties were declared federal disaster areas in September 2004 after storm remnants set off 155 landslides, caused five deaths and destroyed 27 homes.
Since these catastrophes there has been an explosion of mountain resort development in Western North Carolina. No one is certain what impact this will have on mountainside stability, but geologists know and have stated that this increased residential and resort construction on mountain slopes is exposing more people to the threat of landslides.
Landslides do happen spontaneously but evidence shows that most slope failures in Western North Carolina are caused by construction practices. According to state geologists, building resorts and subdivisions on mountain slopes necessitates cutting roads into steep terrain and placing homes on vertical slopes. The infrastructure for this development requires burying piping for water, sewage, and septic systems in degraded and vulnerable ground. If construction for these projects is not done safely and carefully, these artificially created slope sites will fail.
Local environmental officers are also expressing alarm about Western North Carolina’s unregulated building practices. On March 27, 2006 Marc Pruett told the Haywood County Commissioners: “Currently anyone with a bulldozer and backhoe can carve out home sites and roads into the mountainside. This lack of engineering is causing homes and roads to slide down the mountain throughout the county.”
Pruett, who directs the county’s erosion-control program, has a slide show he uses to illustrate the ongoing local disasters. (”Disappearing Haywood” by Jeff Schmerker, The Enterprise-Mountaineer, October 31, 2005)
Pruett’s shocking photos show roads that have simply disintegrated as the land beneath them has shifted. There are images of chocolate-brown waterways clogged with runoff from construction. Others show slopes so steeply cut that they are continually eroding. Homes fare no better. Some have been knocked off their precarious perches by landslides; foundations are laced with cracks so big you can see daylight. Still other houses are being ripped to bits as the “solid ground” they are built on starts to move. And in just about every case, says Pruett, a combination of substandard construction and inappropriate sites is to blame.
Jeff Turner, District supervisor for Buncombe County Soil and Water, stated in a letter to a local newspaper in January 2007 ” I, along with many of you, have personally witnessed the condemned homes from past quick development of mountainous terrain. We have already learned our lesson here. We don’t need anymore of this. Some of these homes, only a few years old, are now just worthless investments. Developers who code jump or try continually to get variances on legitimate ordinances should be run out of town and forbidden to ever contract in our county again.” MountainXpress, “Economic development meets steep-slope reality” January 31, 2007
In the spring of 2005 a landslide covered Oak Street in downtown Spruce Pine. “It’s a gravity thing,” said Alex Glover, a geologist for Zemex Industrial Minerals. “It’s a fact of nature, there’s nothing that can be done to stop more debris from falling.” Mitchell News-Journal, March 16, 2005, “It’s a gravity thing” by Nathan Hall.
As reported in the Mitchell News-Journal article, Glover said the town can install permanent barriers to block or catch falling debris, but the construction will be expensive and there is no way to permanently stabilize the bank.
“It’s a bad situation,” he said, pointing to a large slab of exposed rock, its sections clearly slanted toward Oak Avenue. “It’s like a stack of dominoes, tilted, and now loosening and falling apart.” Glover said the sections of rock are called “Ash”, a group of old ocean-type sediments mixed with volcanic sediments. He said the formations, millions of years old, were originally formed to be flat, but shifted due to mountain building. He said as the rock degrades, it forms Saprolite - which is basically weathered, rotten rock.
Western North Carolina’s “Build Anywhere” standards are a developer’s dream but a potential financial nightmare for unsuspecting buyers and current property owners. State geologists and other informed professionals warn that the consequences of error can be great when homes and roads are carelessly placed on questionable mountain slopes. There are safe building locations in Western North Carolina but these sites can only be determined by state licensed professionals.