By Tina Alvey
LEWISBURG — At the conclusion of a 90-minute hearing, the Greenbrier County Planning Commission voted 9-5 to recommend adoption of a new comprehensive plan. The ultimate decision on whether to adopt the plan is up to the county commission.
Sixteen of the 26 people who addressed the planners voiced support for the new plan, while seven speakers opposed adoption. The other three speakers praised the process, but did not express any clear sentiment about the quality of the resulting document.
Opposition centered primarily on the plan’s language in regard to agricultural issues.
Vernon Hayslette, a newly appointed member of the planning commission, took the microphone early in the session to express his concern about the plan’s call for passage of a “right to farm” ordinance.
The plan mentions the ordinance twice in the Environmental Resources section, calling on the county commission to “support a healthy agricultural and forestal industry by minimizing the impact of development on significant agricultural and forestal lands, supporting a ‘right to farm’ ordinance and encouraging the use of best management practices, especially in resource management and protection,” and to “adopt a modified ‘right to farm’ ordinance in Greenbrier County to protect local farms from unreasonable nuisance complaints.”
Hayslette, a Clintonville farmer, said State Code prohibits counties from adopting any laws regulating or restricting farms.
Ironically, the “right to farm” passages Hayslette and some other farmers objected to were added to the plan at the behest of the county’s farm bureau, according to planner Robert Gronan.
Not all farmers who spoke shared the same anti-regulatory opinions.
Phyllis Tuckwiller, who owns a farm in the Richlands area to the west of Lewisburg with her husband Shine said, “I’m in a zoned area, and I like it.”
Organ Cave farmer Robert Doering said he wishes the proposed plan had been in place two or three years ago when a developer bought property in his community. Doering said the guidelines in the plan, if followed, would have prevented the development of Stoney Glen and the annexation controversy it spawned.
Other supporters of the comprehensive plan cited the need to preserve water quality and provide for orderly development as the population grows.
Opponent Wayne McCoy of Williamsburg dismissed the idea that the county’s population will ever again grow as much as 1 percent in a year, pointing to school consolidation as proof the local community continues to shrink.
“We’ve done all right without (a new comprehensive plan),” he said.
Linda Terek Ball, a member of the Lewisburg Planning Commission, urged county officials to adopt the proposed plan, saying, “It will help preserve the quality and character of our county.”
She also commented on those critics of the plan who did not participate in the numerous public workshops held to give the public the opportunity to have their input considered in preparing the draft plan.
“If a citizen did not participate, it was from his or her own choosing,” Ball said, noting it was unfair for those who would not take the time to help build the plan to now throw stones at it.
Planning commission vice president Britt Ludwig explained the process that was followed in crafting the plan that was launched in June 2008. The county hired a consulting firm, the Cambria Planning Group of Christiansburg, Va., to assist the planners.
A survey was developed and distributed as widely as possible, Ludwig said. Then, six informational meetings were publicized through the local media, drawing around 64 attendees. An extensive online process to allow the public to submit proposed amendments and comment on the work that had been done was devised, and six more public workshop meetings were conducted.
“We did the best we could,” Ludwig told the 100 or so people gathered in the courthouse. “Nobody up here (on the planning commission) wrote this. We wanted it to come from the citizens of Greenbrier County, and we think we got that.”
— E-mail: talvey@register-herald.com
