Mountain Ridge and Steep Slope Protection Initiative
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Final Report
Available!
Project Background
Overarching Issues
Findings and Strategies
Economic Impacts of
Development and Preservation
Public Safety
Public Health
Water Quality, Quantity
and Impacts
Loss of Natural Areas,
Forests and Wildlife and the Role of Conservation
Preferred Development
Processes and Best Management Practices
Next Steps and
Contact Information
Final Report
Available!
Mountain Ridge and
Steep Slope Committee issues Recommendations
On July 16, 2008, the Mountain Ridge
and Steep Slope Protection Advisory Committee released its
final report documenting findings and strategies related
to ridge and steep slope development and protection. This
report is the result of a year and a half of research,
developing strategies and recommendations and drafting and
finalizing the report. It was a collaborative effort
involving many individuals and agencies. The Advisory
Committee has no regulatory authority. Its recommendations
are offered to government, non-profit and private sector
organizations with hopes that they will incorporate them
into their practices and take actions to implement them.
Project
Background
Homes developing on slopes in Maggie Valley (photo taken by Carla
Norwood)]
The mountainous area of western North
Carolina (WNC) is experiencing rapid growth and increasingly
more development is moving onto steeper slopes and mountain
ridges. Community leaders and long-time residents have been
expressing concerns about losing the resources and viewsheds
that give this region its unique sense of place. Local
governments are looking for ways to encourage and/or require
safer and more responsible development on steep slopes. In
response, the Land-of-Sky Regional Council secured funding
from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and established a
diverse Mountain Ridge and Steep Slope Protection Advisory
Committee to study this issue and develop strategies to
promote safer, more responsible and sustainable development.
The goal of the project was to
conduct a comprehensive examination of the various issues
related to this type of development and to develop a set of
regulatory and non-regulatory strategies to address these
issues. This comprehensive study looked at a variety
of issues and impacts related to these development
activities, yielding various and sometimes conflicting
recommendations. Specific issues addressed in the study
include:
- Public
safety, including landslides and emergency
response/access;
- Public
health, including water supply and wastewater treatment;
- Water
quality and quantity effects due to accelerated soil
erosion and increased stormwater runoff and the
resulting impacts on fish and other aquatic organisms;
- The
loss of forestland, natural areas and wildlife habitat
and the role of land conservation;
- The
positive and negative economic impacts of both
development and protection programs; and
- Best
management practices and improvements to the development
process.
The Advisory Committee and staff
welcomed public input and involvement throughout the
process. Ten separate community input sessions were held in
five different WNC counties in May and June, 2007 and
approximately 150 citizens and officials attended these.
Key groups, including local government managers and
planners, developers, realtors, county sanitarians and
others were consulted in separate meetings. The Advisory
Committee’s monthly meetings were open meetings and meeting
notices and notes were sent to anyone who requested them.
Overarching
Issues
It is helpful to acknowledge a couple
overarching issues and recommendations before getting into
the detailed findings and strategies:
·
Policies need to be based on the best
available scientific data (e.g., geotechnical
analyses and landslide hazard maps).
·
Governments across the mountain region
need to work together to ensure policy consistency.
·
Many of these issues are
inter-related and decision-makers need to acknowledge
that tradeoffs exist among various policy
recommendations, and tradeoffs will occur as a result of a
particular recommendation.
Findings
and Strategies
A few key
findings and strategies for each issue area are noted
below. Please refer to the full report for more details and
for a comprehensive discussion of all the issue areas,
including a longer list of findings and strategies.
Economic Impacts of Development and
Preservation:
o
There are benefits and costs associated with
both development and preservation of steep slopes and
mountain ridges; and the results sometimes affect
individuals and sometimes a larger community.
o
Local and state governments should implement
incentives to reward developers who protect viewsheds,
habitats and water quality and to reward land owners who
commit to conserve their lands through conservation
easements. (Strategies EC-2, EC-5)
Public Safety:
o
Landslides are a legitimate concern in western
North Carolina and they pose threats to human life and
public safety. A damaging landslide occurs nearly every
year in the region and major landslide events occur about
every nine years somewhere in the region.
Peeks Creek landslide, September, 2004; five people were
killed and 15 homes were destroyed (photo taken by Rick
Wooten)
o
Homeowners’ insurance in North Carolina does
not cover structural damage due to landslides. There is no
current notification system that tells someone they are
buying property, building or living in a landslide hazard
zone.
o
Geotechnical analysis should be required for
proposed developments on slopes greater than 40 percent or
in landslide hazard areas as a minimum standard.
§
When measuring slope for a parcel, the focus
should be on the area that will be disturbed, rather
than the average slope across the entire parcel. (PS-5)
o
Advocate for appropriations from the
Legislature for approximately $580,000 per year to
accelerate the Landslide Hazard Mapping program and to
complete mapping for all 24 WNC counties by 2016. (PS-6)
o
Roads need to be designed for adequate
emergency access. At least two points of access should be
provided to all areas of a development and road widths
should be carefully considered, weighing public safety
issues with environmental issues. (PS-10, PS-13 and PS-14)
Public Health:
o
Groundwater is a critically important natural
resource in WNC and steep slope developments rely heavily on
it for potable water supply. About half of WNC residents
rely on groundwater and this percentage is much higher in
steep slope areas.
o
There are unique ground water quality, usage,
and sustainability issues on steep slopes, particularly in
the fractured rock terrain of Western North Carolina –
groundwater storage is limited due to thin soils, increased
run-off and limited groundwater recharge. Prior to
development it is recommended that a site-specific
evaluation be made to determine whether adequate high
quality groundwater supplies are present and can be
sustained. (PH-3)
o
Standard state setbacks between private wells
and septic tank systems may be inadequate to prevent well
contamination in steep slope developments. The hydraulic
connection between septic fields and wells is different in
different terrains and current laws and ordinances tend to
employ a “one size fits all” rule which does not reflect
these complexities. The State should undertake research to
better understand these issues and develop new septic to
well setback guidelines based on slope and other factors.
(PH-8)
Water Quality, Quantity and
Impacts:
o
Land-disturbing activities can greatly change
the overall health of a stream watershed, from removing
streamside vegetation to increasing stormwater runoff, water
temperature, sedimentation, and erosion. Given the
importance of our headwater streams and the important
economic and ecological roles that riparian vegetation plays
in protecting those streams, we must ensure appropriate
development designs and the use of best management practices
to provide necessary protection.
Loss of forest cover and increased impervious surfaces
create water quantity and quality problems (photo taken by
Gabriel Cummings)
o
In steep slope areas, impervious surfaces
within the development tract should be limited to no more
than 10 percent of the total project area and designers
should avoid placing impervious areas on steep portions of
the tract (WQ-1).
o
At least 50 percent of the entire steep slope
development tract should be preserved as forestland; areas
within individual parcels and streamside protection areas
can be included in this percentage (WQ-2).
o
In steep slope areas, Streamside Protection
Areas should be established on all perennial streams,
intermittent streams and wetlands. Protection Area width
should be based on the slope of the adjacent land (WQ-4).
o
The State should provide additional resources
to the NC Land Quality Section for additional staff in the
Asheville Regional Office to increase inspections of land
disturbing sites under the state’s jurisdiction (WQ-10).
Local governments should consider adopting their own local
erosion and sedimentation control programs (WQ-11).
o
State and local governments should require all
steep slope developments to submit comprehensive storm water
management plans (WQ-16)
Loss
of Natural Areas, Forests, Wildlife and the Role of Land
Conservation:
o
Development activities on steep slopes and
along mountain ridges have increased substantially in both
numbers and size during recent years in the mountains of
western North Carolina.
§
A recently published report indicates that
developed land in the mountains has increased by 44 percent
over the last 20 years and estimates that the mountain
region will lose an additional 22 percent of open space
during the next 20 years.
o
Privately-owned working forests are being
converted to development in western North Carolina. This
phenomenon is contributing to a reduction of the economic
viability of the timber industry and a loss of jobs
associated with timber management and harvesting.
o
Increasing pressure from suburbanization of
remote areas will create a variety of problems for wildlife
and their habitat. Human encounters with animals
(especially bears) also will become more frequent as the
landscape becomes less “wild.”
o
Each county should establish a Land
Conservation Fund to create a funding source for
state/federal grant match money to protect highly valued
natural resources/open space and to provide recreational
opportunities for their residents and visitors (LC-3).
Buncombe County has a Land Conservation Advisory Committee
and has provided approximately $3.8 million in funding for
land conservation projects in the last two years.
Land that Buncombe County helped conserve in the Sandy Mush
area (photo provided by Debbie Truempy)
o
The General Assembly should appoint a study
committee to conduct research and review of changes to
property tax law in order to provide relief to landowners
interested in conserving their land (LC-6).
o
Encourage adequate on-going state funding for
the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the NC Parks &
Recreation Trust Fund, the Agricultural Development and
Farmland Protection Trust Fund and the NC Natural Heritage
Trust Fund (LC-7).
o
Local governments should adopt land use
policies that incorporate environmental protections and
conservation design principles while giving incentives to
developers whose plans are outstanding examples of
environmental sensitivity (LC-8).
Preferred Development Processes and
Best Management Practices:
o
There is a critical need to define a preferred
development review process and create best management
practices for steep slope development. A Preferred
Development Process needs to include due diligence, design,
approval, permitting and implementation and should be
utilized for all projects that are to be built in the
mountain region. One goal of these efforts is to create a
greater dialogue, sooner in the process, among local
governments and designers and project specialists.
o
Encourage conservation-based development
plans, through regulations and incentives.
Conservation-based design practices strive to
conserve/preserve a site’s natural resources and features
while designing the development on the site. Incentives may
include a faster permitting process, allowances for
increased density, reduced fees, and others. (PDP-3)
o
Develop some sort of regional Sensitive
Developer Certification Program that would include having
knowledge/expertise on multiple related topics pertaining to
developing in the mountains. The Asheville Homebuilders
Association and Asheville Board of Realtors are partnering
with Asheville, Buncombe County and the Land-of-Sky Regional
Council to develop and offer this type of program. (PDP-5)
Next Steps
The Land-of-Sky Regional Council has
secured additional funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds
Foundation to take the next steps. Council staff and the
Advisory Committee are conveying this study’s findings and
strategies to key groups across the mountain region
including local and state officials, the building and real
estate industry, and other interested groups. The Advisory
Committee has agreed to continue meeting to assist in
implementing the strategies in this report. Many other
organizations will need to get involved and play a role in
taking positive action to ensure safer and more sustainable
development on mountain ridges and steep slopes. Your
assistance is welcome!
Contact
Bill Eaker or
Linda Giltz to discuss or get involved in the project.
For more information or a hard copy of
the final report ($10), contact Land-of-Sky Regional Council
at
828-251-6622 or view/download a
free electronic copy of the report here. |
