The Johnston County Growth Management Committee has scheduled public hearings for the following dates:Tuesday, January 23, 6:00 p.m Tuesday, January 30, 6:00 p.m. Both hearings will take place in the Johnston County Courthouse, old courtroom. There will be plenty of people representing the extremes - developers who want no regulation, and people who want to slam the door on any further development. Moderates, who think there should be some controls, may be less motivated to come out, but their input is needed. We have talked about out-of-control growth before, now is our opportunity to let the County Commissioners know we want something done about it. Anybody who is interested in carpooling to one or both of those meetings, please PM me.
I would love to go and speak out against some of the growth if I thought they would actually listen. But as always, big money will prevail!
Honestly i am totally torn on this subject. While i would love the convenience of Walmart, etc closer than Clayton or Garner, is it worth it to lose our small town feel. This is a subject i really cannot make a decision on. i agree though with H6, if we don't get together and incorporate soon someone else will make those decisions for us.
i think there is value in controlled growth -- not to mention that we are behind as a county on things like adequate number of school facilities, safe roads, water and waste treatment -- so if we are behind already how will we ever catch up or get ahead??? --not to mention how will we finance it all??
Small town? Just a thought here,.....has anyone noticed? We dont have a "town". One of the things that might help is as simple as SIDEWALKS!!!!!!!!!!!! Its very difficult to maintain anything if cars are the only way to get around. Roads get wider, speed limits go up, etc. I love growth, Id love to see a skyscraper near by but we will stay as just an area to pass through to Fuquay, Clayton or the like. But for goodness sake doesnt anyone have any advice for the rush hour on 42? We either widen it again or build another road around the congested area. Ughhhh! A heck I dunno what the answer is,....
If you want big buildings/ "Skyscraper near you move to New York or Raleigh! I kinda liked the country setting it used to be.
As I think I said in another conversation on this board, I think growth is better than no growth; I think when we stop growing, we start dying. But uncontrolled growth causes all manner of problems, so we need some planning. Should we just let developers put whatever they want, wherever they want, in the name of growth? Or should we look at proposals and try to see their effects on infrastructure - schools, roads and highways, water and sewer? We have an opportunity to make our voice heard.
i would like to see managed growth take place where there is a long term plan for payment of services required, ie roads, emergency services, water/sewer, schools, recreation facilities, etc. -- not voting to borrow money every time there is a need -- we keep running up the balance on the bond credit card with no plan to pay more than the minimum or to pay it off -- -- and a bond is still a tax increase no matter how you look at it-- it may be the short term solution to get us out of this hole but lets not dig another hole so that in five years we are repeating the same mistake -- we have to have a long range plan for managed growth
Claytonsassy~ I agree with you. The definition of Economic Development is managed growth. We don't have any economic development here, just development
Thanks for doing that Grandma - i would be very interested in what happens. In one aspect i would like to go but to be honest, i am just not educated enough on the subject to have any real input. i know, it is something i really need to educate myself on and intend on doing so. Thanks again.
Well, folks, tonight's meeting was kind of interesting, and a little shorter than planned. Everybody who wanted to speak had an opportunity to do so, and then they adjourned. The purpose of the meeting was to get input from the public. The committee began by summarizing their work, and then allowed the public to speak. The committee consists of 3 County Commissioners, 3 members of the county planning board, and two other members. They have been working on this report for over a year. This report is the first step in a process. They will have 2 public hearings, tonight being the first, and another next Tuesday; then they will have a closed meeting to discuss the public input, and finally they will make a recommendation to the county commissioners. Here is the report, but be forewarned before you click on that link if you have dial-up - it's a 45mb pdf file. They say in the introduction that they believe growth is better than no growth, but that it should be managed growth, or "smart" growth. The main recommendation of the report is to change the density of residential land. Right now, land that is zoned residential can be developed at a density of 1.5 houses per acre; they would change that to 1 house per 2 acres. Density is not to be confused with lot size. A 100 acre tract at present could be developed with 150 houses, and the lot size could range from .25 acre or .5 acre, depending on soil conditions, on up. If this change is put in place, that same size tract could only have 50 homes on it. That hundred acres could be all divided up into 2-acre lots, or part of it could be divided into smaller lots and the rest used for other, non-residential uses. Any higher-density development would require a special use permit. Lots that have already been approved would not be affected by this change. There are currently 16,500 lots that have been approved that have not yet been built on; those could still be built at the previously approved density. Speakers included a representative of the Johnston County Realtors, a representative of the John Locke Foundation, a couple of landowners who do not live in the county, a farmer from Cleveland, and several private citizens. The realtors, large landowners, and JLF representative all spoke against the plan, saying essentially that the County should not try to regulate growth. The farmer from Cleveland said the plan is, if anything, too lenient. The private citizens generally favored the plan, or something like it. I did not go with prepared remarks, and did not plan to speak, but (I'm sure you will all be surpised to learn ) I sometimes feel the need to speak my mind. So I did. I basically said I agree with them that growth is better than no growth, but we need to manage growth somehow. I mentioned the fact that no sooner is a new school built than they are putting trailers there, and I mentioned the traffic at 40/42. I said we certainly do not want to slam the door on development, but we do need to think about how we are going to provide infrastructure and service to new and existing residents. I felt that it was worth my while to go, they listened to what I had to say and thanked me for coming. So all you people who didn't make it tonight, how about next Tuesday?
Thank you for this info. I am interested in going NEXT Tuesday. We would have gone tonight but had a conflict with the Cattleman's yearly dinner & meeting. Who was the Cleveland Farmer that spoke? Any idea? Did anyone say anything about the new Voluntary "Farm District" program?
