Previously I wrote about 2 acres of forest at the end of Shelburne Drive in West Asheville [“Time to Act, While There’s Something Left to Save,” Feb. 11, Xpress] that are about to be destroyed to make way for a major subdivision. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved this with total disregard for environmental impact, particularly concerning the French Broad River.
The French Broad River already has a documented turbidity problem, among other issues, and it will be impacted by this atrocity. The commission approved this with total disregard to safety issues, leaving the city exposed to litigation if an accident should occur. And it likely will. No traffic study was completed. My neighbors on Shelburne Drive are getting screwed. Their property will be taken to widen a gravel driveway to a 27-foot-wide road.
“Developed” is a euphemism for “destroyed,” and Asheville’s “development” is a death by a thousand cuts. People can’t look the other way and ignore it because the destruction is everywhere. … It’s time that [the commission members] should be held to account. …
This is YOUR town, Asheville residents. Take a stand, while there’s still something left to save!
— Joseph Nolan
Asheville
Editor’s note: Contact information about the Planning and Zoning Commission can be found at http://avl.mx/0sc.
This will continue to happen as long as people are interested in doing what the letter writer is doing — live in Asheville.
Why didn’t the residents of Shelburne Drive get together and buy these two acres of woodland so they could preserve them as undeveloped land?
How long have you lived here, Mr. Nolan? Where were you born?
If you were not born here and are not a native to the area, then what is it about you that is so special that Asheville was made whole upon your arrival? Why should we have let you in, but slam the gates once you were here?
I hardly consider two acres a forest,patch of woods yes. The reality is that placing houses within an already developed area with highly fragmented habitat makes far more sense environmentally than to sling the same houses over 5-10 acres in rural Buncombe. People are coming, so unless you own the land next door, I’d expect a house on it sooner than later. If writer is truly worried about the environment, its a big picture thing not just what is out your back door….outsourcing/externalizing impacts onto other areas out of sight doesn’t help the whole. Appears this is more of just want to look at pretty trees I don’t own or pay taxes for.