There were a couple surprises in last night’s meeting of the Buncombe County Commissioners. For one thing, the resolution authorizing payment of $21,906 in economic development incentives to Hi-Wire Brewing was pulled from the agenda for further consideration. Outside the meeting, somebody said something about the company not creating as many jobs as promised but investing well over what they said they would in the community. I don’t know if that was what the issue was, or if it was something else.
In another matter, the county was going to zone nine areas that they now can because of changes in general statutes. State law had protected the “doughnut holes” from countywide zoning because they were (1) surrounded by incorporated areas and (2) too small. The county’s planners did their best to align the zonings with what was already built, but Woodfin’s town manager, Jason Young, showed up for the public hearing. Young had been reading the newspapers when he discovered the county was about to zone areas that had been annexed by Woodfin. The paperwork was not completely recorded, but it was assumed it would be a whole lot more complicated for county officials to unzone the parcels than for them to just let the matter ride. In addition to wanting to buy some time to go over the details with county staff, Young wanted to talk to Buncombe leadership about modifying future zonings in his backyard to more aggressively work toward eliminating trailer parks.
