Photo courtesy of the Richmond County Planning Department
At left is the original area that CSX wanted to rezone to Heavy Industrial. At right, the highlighted “L” shape shows the buffer area around a group of houses that CSX agreed not to rezone.
CSX allows buffer, county water possible for residents
HAMLET — The Richmond County Board of Commissioners approved — in a 4-2 vote — the rezoning of a portion of the parcel originally being considered to be made available for Heavy Industry Thursday.
After reading a long series of letters opposing the rezoning, several of which included signatures by a total of 100 people, from residents who live on property adjacent to the 167 acre parcel that straddles Marks Creek Church Road, CSX offered to compromise by allowing a roughly 300-foot wide, 30-acre buffer around some of those residents’ property who would be closest to any new development.
In a letter to the board, CSX said that they are “amenable to (the portion of the parcel east of Chappell Lane and on the south east side of Marks Creek Church Road) remaining Rural Residential/Agricultural if that option would be more agreeable to all concerned.” This land was deemed less likely to be attractive to future industrial development. Buck Chappell, one of the more outspoken property owners on the south east side of the road, told the Daily Journal Wednesday that keeping this buffer area free of industrial development would make new industry taking up shop on the other side of the road “easier to swallow.”
Commissioners Jimmy Capps and Don Bryant voted against the rezoning. When reached by phone for comment on his vote, Capps requested to answer questions via email but did not respond to an emailed request for comment Thursday. Bryant also did not respond to an emailed request for comment Thursday.
Another round of letters raised concern for the impact to local chicken houses, property values, the difficulty and safety of driving in the area with more trucks and equipment on the roads and the impact to the environment. Economic Developer Martie Butler wrote, in a follow up letter to her Tuesday letter, in response to concerns over negative effects of this decision that this rezoning has been unanimously approved by the Planning Board, which is the same body that authored the county’s land use plan.
“This process was scrutinized, deliberated and vetted by the entire board,” Butler wrote. “We are a rural, Tier 1 community and getting good business to move to our community is not an easy task.”
She added that jobs in the railroad industry have an average starting salary of $45,000.
In an added benefit, though some residents Wednesday expressed suspicion of the county’s motives in an interview with the Daily Journal, the addition of industry in the area would make it more cost effective for everyone involved to run county water out to the area, which they have been asking for for decades. Chappell was previously told it would cost him $65,000 individually to run a county water line out to the area, and since then everyone has been on well water.
“With industrial growth on this parcel I will have the ability to access funding to extend a waterline to the site, in homes, and eight chicken houses of the concerned community,” Butler said.
Commissioner Rick Watkins asked if all of the land on the south eastern side of Marks Creek Church Road, not just the buffer, could remain zoned residential. Chairman Kenneth Robinette said that CSX was willing do allow this, but Planning Director Tracy Parris interjected, saying that rezoning the square-shaped portion of the parcel on the south eastern side of the road to Heavy Industrial would help the county get funding for a future water line.
“Keeping that bottom portion would allow water to be extended all the way down to those additional chicken houses when (Butler) went to go in for grants,” Parris said.
Commissioner Ben Moss recused himself from the vote because he is an employee of CSX, but made his feelings about the rezoning known.
“I understand the concerns of the citizens in this area but this land is a perfect opportunity for us to increase our industrial growth for this county and as commissioners that’s what we’ve strived to do on my term on the board for the last nine years …,” Moss said. “All in all I believe CSX has stepped out to there and they’ve tried to make some amends and tried to help the people in that area with a little buffer here and letting some land not be rezoned that they initially wanted rezoned so in my mind I think they’re compromising and I think this could be a way to get water in the area.
“We’re tired of being a Tier 1, poor county and we’ve got to have jobs to get out of that rut,” Moss continued.
Hope and Lonnie “Chris” Norton still felt “disheartened” after the vote. Their property, which they build a home on in 2013 with plans of retiring there, backs up to the property that was rezoned on the south east side of Marks Creek Church Road. They said the Enviva plant already makes noise late into the night and the thought of more industry coming to the area makes them want to leave when Chris’s parents pass.
Hope said after the vote that they didn’t want either proposal from CSX, the original or the compromise.
Reach Gavin Stone at 910-817-2673 or gstone@www.yourdailyjournal.com.
