Hendo Comp Plan URGENT ACTION: STOP THE SPRAWL

URGENT ACTION: STOP THE SPRAWL

The Henderson County Planning Department is circulating a draft Future Land Use Map that contradicts our community’s priorities as reflected in the County’s own survey results. The draft map prioritizes sprawl — development that spreads too far into the countryside, unnecessarily destroying forests, farmland, and rural communities — at great expense to taxpayers and against the desires of county residents.

Take action: Email Henderson County Commissioners and ask them to fix its Future Land Use Map and adopt a responsible, sustainable Comprehensive Plan.

The Case Against Sprawl

Perhaps the greatest threat to clean air, clean water, and natural landscapes in Western North Carolina is sprawling, poorly-planned development.

Sprawl is a financial loser, too. It wastes taxpayer dollars on unnecessary roads, sewers, and other infrastructure, even as it threatens the farms and orchards that make our county attractive to visitors and investors.

What is Sprawl?

Sprawl is development that spreads too far into the countryside, unnecessarily destroying forests, farmland, and rural communities. The key word here is “unnecessarily.”

Between 1976 and 2006, Henderson County’s developed land area grew eight times faster than its population, according to a UNC Charlotte study. In other words, as the county’s population slowly grew 92%, its developed land area exploded by 730%. At the same time, other counties in Western North Carolina experienced something similar.

What is at Stake?

Unfortunately, the same sprawl-inducing forces are still at work today. Growth in Henderson County is governed by antiquated rules that allow low rural land prices to drive development out into the countryside. And … roughly 40,000 new residents are expected here between now and 2045. About 17,000 new homes will be built. If we don’t take action, current rules will allow new development to explode all over the county map, endangering…

Clean Air: Sprawl forces residents to drive more miles, increasing air pollution and exacerbating climate change

Clean Water: Sprawl threatens the purity of creeks and rivers. Asphalt, roofs, and lawns dump polluted storm water directly into waterways, rather than letting it be filtered through the soil. More asphalt, roofs, and lawns means more pollution.

Wildlife: Sprawl displaces wildlife. The Southern Appalachians are a global biodiversity hotspot. To protect the amazing variety and abundance of local species, we must protect more land — not just forests, but also the habitat provided by open fields and pastures.

Rural Heritage: Sprawl undermines rural heritage. Henderson County lost one-third of its apple orchards between 2002 and 2017, according to the county’s comprehensive planning consultant. If this trend continues, the consultant added, no apples will be grown here by 2040. For decades, Henderson County has been “apple country.” Why destroy our heritage, and our branding, unnecessarily?

Fiscal Prudence: Sprawl burdens taxpayers. When developed land grows faster than the population, each taxpayer becomes responsible —unnecessarily — for fixing more potholes, maintaining more sewers, repairing more electrical wires, buying more gasoline for fire and police protection, etc.

Healthy Communities Intern Description

Healthy Communities Program Intern

Position Description:
The Healthy Communities intern will work with Chris Joyell, Healthy Communities Director, to research issues involving housing, transportation, land use controls and health, and assist in engaging communities in designing their future. Our work is rooted in the principles of Smart Growth, and we encourage prospective interns to familiarize themselves with these principles prior to engaging with us. A background in design and/or planning is preferred, but students studying health, environmental management, geography/GIS, and economics have also found their niche in our program.

Start date: Flexible
End date: Flexible

Work schedule: Flexible

Compensation: Mileage reimbursed at approximately $0.655 per mile

Location: This position will work with staff in either our Asheville or Hendersonville offices.

Please answer the following questions in your cover letter and attach that document when submitting your application form:

What skills and experience can you bring to this internship?
What skills and experience are you hoping to gain from the internship?
Is this internship for school credit or for personal experience?
What connection do you see between the built environment and the natural areas MountainTrue is working to protect?
How do you hope to leverage your internship experience in furthering your career?

Applications due by July 15, 2025. Including a resume is optional. Apply through this form.

Hiker’s Guide to a Successful Hike-A-Thon

Here are some helpful tips to help you recruit supporters and raise money!

Set a Goal

Setting a goal can be a powerful motivator. Be sure to pick a specific goal, whether miles hiked, dollars raised, or both. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s attainable between now and the end of September. Personalize your Rally Up page with a photo of yourself, and write updates along the way so your friends and family can track your progress.

Ask for Support

Let your people know what you’re up to and how they can help out. You can do this in person, over email, or with your social media accounts. See page two of this guide for examples of how you can ask your network for support.

Keep Your Supporters Updated

Your supporters want to know how you’re doing! Take photos and short videos when hiking and post them to your social media. Give updates on how many miles you’ve hiked and how close you are to your fundraising goal. We recommend giving your network two to three updates along the way. To reach your supporters directly, compose an update on your personalized Rally Up page. Your post will automatically be sent to everyone who has pledged to your hike.

Invite Others to Join

Host a group hike and invite others to become a hiker as well. Make it a friendly competition to see who can hike the most miles, raise the most money, or just team up and enjoy your days in the woods with some of your favorite people.

Asking by email

Here is a sample letter that you can modify and send to friends and family:

Greetings, Friends and Family!

I have accepted the challenge to raise money for MountainTrue’s 40th-anniversary event: 40 Miles for 40 Years Hike-a-thon. The Hike-a-thon takes place from June until the end of September 2022. Hikers (that’s me!) raise money for every mile hiked during this time. My goal is to hike [insert #] of miles and raise [insert $amount.]

[Why MounTrue’s work is important to you]

Every dollar raised through the Hike-a-thon supports MountainTrue’s work creating and sustaining a healthy environment by ensuring resilient forests, advocating for clean waters, building healthy communities, promoting sustainable living and clean energy, and increasing civic engagement in policy-making. You can find out more about MountainTrue and their important work here: https://mountaintrue.org/.

Please support me in celebrating MountainTrue’s 40th anniversary! You can make a pledge for my miles or a one-time gift here: [insert your personalized link (don’t forget to make it a hyperlink)]. Donating through the site is simple, fast, and secure. You can also send a check at the end of the Hikeathon to MountainTrue 29 N Market St., Suite 610 Asheville, NC 28801.

Many thanks for your support — and please consider forwarding this to others who might want to donate too!

Sincerely,

Social media ask

Here is a sample social media posts to inspire you:

Hey friends! I have accepted MountainTrue’s 40 Miles for 40 Years Hike-A-Thon challenge. [Why MountainTrue’s work matters to you]. My goal is to hike [insert #” of miles and raise “insert $amount.]

Please support me in celebrating MountainTrue’s 40th anniversary by pledging your support! You can make a pledge for my miles or a one-time gift here: [insert your personalized link.]

*Post with a photo of you hiking or enjoying the outdoors.

Download This Guide As a PDF

Download

Join us for the 16th Annual Green Bash!

Get ready for an exciting day full of kayaking trips, waterfall rappelling, treks, cold beer, and good music when the Spring Green Bash — Saluda’s favorite river and block party — returns on May 7!

The whole Green River community is invited to the Spring Green Bash block party at Green River Adventures in downtown Saluda, NC. We’ll enjoy great beer from Oskar Blues Brewing and music by Aaron Burdett. We’ll also announce the winner of the charity raffle for a Liquidlogic Coupe XP kayak, a whitewater kayak valued at $1,000! Proceeds from the raffle benefit MountainTrue’s Green Riverkeeper – the protector and defender of the Green River Watershed.

Join us at the Spring Green Bash at Green River Adventures on May 7, 2022, to see if you’re the lucky winner of a Liquidlogic Coupe XP kayak (you do not need to be present to win)! Ticket sales end on May 7, 2022, and tickets may also be purchased at the event.

Where: Green River Adventures, 111 E. Main Street, Saluda, NC

When: Saturday, May 7, 5:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Click here to learn more and purchase your raffle ticket!

MountainTrue’s Susan Bean Writes About Asheville’s Open Space Amendment in MTX

Mountain Xpress Contributor Piece written by Susan Bean, MountainTrue’s Housing and Transportation Director. Published March 21, 2022.

More neighbors? Yes, please!

I live in a neighborhood near UNC Asheville that I completely adore. I work with my neighbors to host pocket park workdays and annual block parties, and I’ve basically turned my yard into the neighborhood dog park. A 6-year-old two blocks over rides his bike to deliver a newspaper that he makes himself on single 8-by-10-inch sheets of paper announcing things like, “Halloween is coming! You’d better get your costume ready!” Obviously, I subscribe for a quarter a week because that is news I need.

Building healthy communities

I also work for MountainTrue, a nonprofit where we advocate on behalf of healthy communities across Western North Carolina. My neighborhood, in many ways, resembles the kind of healthy community we want to foster: one that is walkable, provides easy access to transit and has green space and tree canopy tucked in between houses and apartments. It’s downright charming.

We at MountainTrue believe that increasing housing in neighborhoods like mine that already have roads, water pipes, transit and neighbors is a good thing for our environment, which is why we support the open space amendment currently being considered by Asheville City Council.

Words like “density” and “infill” can cause concern in neighborhoods where people like things the way they are and don’t want to see trees cut down to make room for more buildings. However, Asheville needs more places for people to live, and we have an opportunity to meet that need by welcoming good development.

If given the opportunity to invite more people into my neighborhood by providing something like a duplex or a small apartment building, I would be sad to lose the trees that stand there but would welcome the chance to possibly gain more dog friends for my puppy or a new friend whom I could get milk from in a snowstorm when I badly need to make chocolate chip pancakes. It’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.

The ‘missing middle’

The open space amendment under consideration is designed with the intention of promoting more infill development of small housing units like triplexes and apartment buildings for eight or 10 units. Changing the open space requirements is a key step to achieving the goals of the “missing middle” housing policies (think duplexes, triplexes and modest courtyard apartments) that Asheville already adopted back in 2017. Some opponents of the amendment have painted a picture of the proposal as though it will turn Asheville into a treeless landscape of concrete that makes money for a few people and ruins the lives of those of us who live here, but that takes the neighbors out of the equation.

At MountainTrue, our mission is to champion resilient forests, clean waters and healthy communities. We love trees. We have staff members who have spent their whole careers fighting to protect old-growth forests, advocating for stream buffer protections and calling for fewer lanes of traffic on Interstate 26 so we can keep more old trees and old neighborhoods healthy and vibrant.

The reality of missing middle development is that people will live in those new homes if they get built. If they don’t get built in town, then those people will instead move to new homes farther from the city center, where acres of forest or farmland will be lost to build new roads, new suburbs and new grocery stores for those people to shop in. If we welcome them in town, we can save those forests and farmlands and maybe even make some new friends.

I hope you will join us in supporting adoption of the open space amendment. I also hope you will work with us to grapple with the complexities of how we will grow. Development in places with preexisting infrastructure is a crucial strategy for combating sprawl. It fosters both healthy communities and a healthy environment. And ultimately, we want both.

Susan Bean is the community engagement director for MountainTrue in addition to being an Asheville resident with wonderful neighbors.

Henderson County Volunteer Spotlight: Fred Thompson

“MountainTrue’s Volunteer Water Information Network (VWIN) has some pretty terrific volunteers” says Lucy Butler, co-leader of the VWIN volunteer base in MountainTrue’s Southern Region. This month, we’re spotlighting the creative and much-appreciated work of Fred Thompson, a MountainTrue VWIN volunteer in Henderson County.

Over the years, Fred’s craftsmanship skills and dedicated volunteerism have made MountainTrue’s participation in the VWIN program much more efficient!

About VWIN

The Volunteer Water Information Network (VWIN) program is a volunteer-based network that has been conducting chemical surface water monitoring in WNC streams on a monthly basis since 1990. VWIN is a major program of the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI), a longtime partner of MountainTrue. Learn more about/get involved with EQI’s VWIN work here, and click here to learn more about MountainTrue’s 30-year partnership with EQI.

Water samples taken by VWIN volunteers help us to better understand water chemistry trends in Western North Carolina and identify and quantify sources of pollution in our region’s watersheds. VWIN water samples are stored in individual bottles and many samples can be collected along riverbanks at various sampling sites. However, a few of our VWIN sites are easier to sample from atop a bridge. This “bridgetop” sampling involves the securing of sample bottles to a box which is then submerged, filled with water, and hauled back up to the top of the bridge.

Several years ago, Fred built steel boxes that allow VWIN volunteers to easily load and unload sample bottles, minimizing the possibility of samples escaping and floating downstream. When we asked him to build more boxes, he found that the price of steel had skyrocketed and his usual sources were not discarding their steel scraps… So he started experimenting with six inch PVC pipe, eventually constructing multiple efficient bridge testing boxes through many hours of trial and error. Fred and his friend, cabinetmaker Thomas Kline, fabricated a series of wooden tooling (molds) to form softened PVC plastic into Fred’s desired box shape. Fred and his wife, Andrea, then used their home oven to soften the plastic. Finally, Fred used concrete over reinforcement wire to reach the requisite five pounds (the bridge boxes must be weighted so they can properly submerge and collect water samples).

Fred’s innovative new bridge testing boxes work perfectly!

In addition to the bridge boxes (pictured right), Fred and Thomas have developed prototypes for improved VWIN sample transport boxes. Each month, VWIN volunteer coordinators for Henderson County transport 37 boxes — each full of water samples from Henderson, Transylvania, and Polk Counties — to EQI’s lab in Black Mountain and return them to the volunteer pickup location. The weight and bulk of the current transport boxes makes this an arduous task, so plans are in place to replace the boxes with lighter, smaller, and more easily handled boxes.

Henderson Co Volunteer Spotlight Blog pic

About Fred

Fred moved to Henderson County in 1993 and retired in 2019. He worked as a maintenance supervisor at NC State and has an Associate’s Degree in Ceramic Engineering. He and Andrea volunteer at the Park at Flat Rock where they maintain the park’s 22 bluebird houses.

Pictured: Andrea and Fred Thompson

Many thanks to Fred, Andrea, and Thomas for improving the VWIN program and supporting efficient, reliable citizen science in Western North Carolina!