Polk County Democrats

If You Want to Keep Polk County Rural and Beautiful, Please Come to This Meeting! 

On Tuesday, January 17, the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO)  Committee will be meeting at the Polk County Library at 7 pm.  One of the main topics on the agenda is the Mountainside and Ridgeline Protection Ordinance (MRPO).    MRPO was adopted to keep Polk County’s mountainsides and ridgelines beautiful and safe from landslides brought on by improper development.  MRPO was adopted both for its safety features, and for its ability to deal with aesthetic issues, to protect the beauty of the mountainsides and ridgelines.

In the past year, some elected officials and business owners in Saluda have asked the UDO Committee to eviscerate MRPO throughout the entirety of Polk County, so that they can expand their businesses and bring in more businesses to the Saluda area.  They have asked to allow commercial development throughout the areas MRPO now protects.

While the UDO Committee has not yet been willing to allow the wholesale destruction of MRPO, they have (appropriately) agreed to look for a way to accommodate more commercial development in the Saluda area.  (MRPO already allows for residential development, including subdivisions, in ways that cause the least damage to the mountainsides and ridgelines).

About 6 weeks ago, I drafted and circulated to the UDO Committee and the Saluda advocates for commercial development a proposal to remedy their concerns.  It would provide that where an area is zoned highway commercial or neighborhood commercial, the provisions of either zoning district would supersede the provisions of MRPO.  The idea is that specific areas, appropriate for commercial development, could be targeted for development, without subjecting all the mountainous areas of Polk County to commercial development.  There is already an area near Saluda that is zoned highway commercial.  If my proposal is adopted as part of MRPO, that area would be available for commercial development immediately.  Then, if the people of the Saluda area, and the rest of Polk County, agree during zoning proceedings that other areas around Saluda should be made available for commercial development, those areas could be rezoned and the zoning map changed to accomplish that.  The procedure would allow for a public hearing on the zoning changes, so that citizens would have their say.

I never heard back from anyone in Saluda about my proposal, but Mayor Baisden recently stated in the Tryon Daily Bulletin that my proposal just would not do, because Saluda might attract industry and my proposal did not provide for industrial development in the Saluda area.  As I could have told Mayor Baisden had he spoken to me, that concern can be quite easily addressed, simply by adding industrial zoning to highway commercial and neighborhood commercial as zoned areas that can be exempt from MRPO.

As you might have seen in the Tryon Daily Bulletin, Mayor Baisden has encouraged all interested people to come to the UDO meeting and let their thoughts be known on this topic.  I, too, hope that concerned citizens will attend the meeting, and speak in favor of my proposal, which is designed to solve the “problems” the Mayor and other development advocates have raised, but save the protections of MRPO in the rest of the County.

There will be a citizen comment period at the beginning of the meeting, where you can speak briefly.  You could simply make a statement such as “I support Renee’s proposal to allow targeted development in the Saluda area and keep the protections of the Mountain and Ridgeline Ordinance in other parts of Polk County.”  Or, “I urge you to adopt only carefully drafted exceptions to the Mountain and Ridgeline Protection Ordinance, and not ruin the protections of MRPO in other parts of the County.”  Or whatever you feel is the proper thing to say.

Because of the way this has been handled by Mayor Baisden for more than a year, not himself suggesting any realistic or reasonable solution, and his clinging to a “cure” that would ruin MRPO throughout Polk County,  and meeting others’ attempts to find a solution with stonewalling and recriminations, I believe there is much more to this than allowing for reasonable development in the Saluda area.  I believe it is an attempt by a small group of people who want to destroy MRPO but don’t want to admit what their intentions are.  I further believe they are trying to drag this out so that they can make it an issue in the next election.  One sitting County Commissioner, who is in league with Mayor Baisden, has said he is against having the Unified Development Ordinance in Polk County.

If you want to protect Polk County’s beauty, the beauty of its Mountainsides and Ridgelines, please come to the January 17 meeting at 7 pm at the Polk County library and stand up for MRPO.