As part of its mission to create a sustainable Sandhills, an area non profit recently spoke to county officials to educate them about land suitability.

John Parsons, executive director of Sustainable Sandhills, said while his is an environmental group, the idea behind suitability maps is much more neutral.

“Sustainability is a mission to balance competing interests with an outcome that takes care of the quality of life and maintains that quality of life for future generations,” Parsons said. “Suitability is potential. The purpose is to make sure these key perspectives are all considered when making developmental decisions, which in turn promotes sustainability.”

The perspectives Parsons is referring to are things like flood zones, farm lands, wetlands, working forest land, conservation land, public water, sewer and roads.

The Suitability Maps are broken down into layers illustrating all of those things, and when a potential location is marked out, using those perspectives, it can tell the planner or developer that the area they’re looking to develop either is or isn’t suitable for certain uses.

The areas covered in the suitability maps, created by Sustainable Sandhills, include the BRAC Regional Task Force region of Moore, Montgomery, Richmond, Scotland, Hoke, Harnett, Lee and Cumberland counties.

“Suitability has nothing to do with land use and it doesn’t predict change,” said Jeff Brown from the North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis. “But it takes into account the makeup of the area and what’s surrounding it to determine suitability.”

“This program was developed because sometimes developers don’t take all perspectives into account,” Parsons told members of the Richmond County Cooperative Extension Office as well as Richmond County staff.

Brown said these maps will never replace site visits, but they do help provide insight to planners and developers before deciding on project locations.

During the information session Thursday, Brown mapped out the Highway 220 corridor between Ellerbe and Rockingham and tested all six categories of residential, commercial, industrial, farm land, forest land and conservation. With the images used from 2005 it showed that the corridor would be best used for spotty residential areas, farms and forest land — mainly because of the lack of water and sewer service.

So the map illustrated what county and city officials in Ellerbe and Rockingham already knew — without sewer infrastructure in place, the Highway 220 corridor would not be conducive for development.

Sustainable Sandhills also announced a new program called the Green Growth Toolbox, which takes the same mapping approach but applies it to wildlife in areas so developers can take animal habitats into consideration before starting a development project.

Sustainable Sandhills has offices in Southern Pines and has programs in place to improve air quality, solid waste reduction and recycling, enhancing local food and culture and providing green business certifications.

For more information on the suitability maps and Sustainable Sandhills, visit www.sustainablesandhills.org.

Staff writer Eren Tataragasi can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 19 or at etataragasi@yourdailyjournal.com.