Mariel Williams
editor@mitchellnews.com
The Mitchell County Board of Commissioners informally set priorities for the next few years in a discussion in last week’s meeting.
Chairman Jeff Harding opened the discussion by going over the goals that the commissioners have discussed in previous meetings, including improved fire mitigation, hiring a Level III building inspector, finishing improvements to the old Bowman school building, and coming up with a revised and improved emergency and disaster response plan.
“So if you go down through there and look at that, are there any things that you guys want to point out that we are not currently doing that we need to discuss?” Harding asked the commissioners.
Commissioner Steve Pitman said he thinks the list of priorities will suit the county’s needs.
“I feel like we’ve got some really good goals,” Pitman said.
Zoning update
In a previous meeting, Harding had suggested that instituting limited corridor zoning would be beneficial in some parts of the county. In last week’s meeting, he asked if the other commissioners would be interested in adding that to the list of goals.
“I’m not sure that I’m ready to say, Jeff,” Commissioner Lee Ellis responded.
Harding said, that in the event the county does decide to pursue limited corridor zoning, he does not want to put in place requirements that might force property owners to spend more on beautifying their buildings.
“I want to make a statement, especially while the paper’s sitting here: It was not Jeff Harding’s intent when he mentioned corridor zoning to limit or tell anybody what they could do as stated by the paper or the expense as stated by the paper that the construction cost would go up,” Harding said. “Jeff Harding’s intent with this is clean your junk pile up, bottom line, (if) your property joins (U.S. Highway 19E, your property joins (N.C. Highway) 226.”
(An editorial on the opinion page of the Feb. 26 edition of the Mitchell News Journal suggested that it would be difficult to improve the look of the main entrances to Mitchell County without requiring businesses to spend more money on their facades, and that limited zoning ordinances tend to grow beyond their original intent.)
“It was my intent to clean your junk piles up and clean your property up and keep it looking neat,” Harding said. “So, that’s all I’m going to say.”
Building inspector recruitment
County Manager Allen Cook said that there is a statewide shortage of building inspectors authorized to conduct Level III inspections, and that in light of that fact, North Carolina has loosened building regulations to allow Level II inspectors to inspect and approve a wider variety of projects.
“The state has seen that there is a major shortage of level threes and they’ve allowed the level twos to take on more inspection types,” Cook said. “So, basically, now a level two can inspect, I would say, 85-90 percent of what a level three can inspect now.”
Cook said that this change has allowed many local developers to get their building projects inspected in the morning instead of having to wait around all day.
“If the project’s in a four-story or greater building, then Level III is required, I think, if I remember correctly,” Cook said.