We the citizens of Buncombe County need to vote yes for the $30 million bonds to protect our land and the $40 million bonds for stable and safe housing [avl.mx/c2w]. Doing so will save us money in the long run by preventing overdevelopment in the wrong place. Moreover, we will sustain the beauty and livability of our community.
I have driven hundreds of miles for the Buncombe County Broadband Workgroup to analyze the costs of building broadband networks to the many thousands of unserved homes in Buncombe. Our beautiful mountains, rocks and trees mean Buncombe is a very expensive area to build broadband networks. I learned we do not have the road network to support higher-density development in our outlying areas.
Building new roads or widening our existing roads will be many, many times more expensive. If we allow unrestrained development of our land rather than conserving land, we taxpayers will be paying for new road infrastructure, not the developers. So, let’s conserve our land and keep our taxes lower.
As a complement, we need affordable, safe housing for our seniors and for the workers who are so vital to our community. These housing efforts will focus on more urban areas, where the lower cost of transportation will help our workers and mean less traffic on rural roads. Together, land conservation and affordable housing lessen the need for expensive new road infrastructure in the more rural areas of Buncombe.
Moreover, our county management has effectively leveraged our county money with state and federal money in building broadband networks. These bond programs will enable Buncombe to leverage the county bond money for conservation and affordable housing.
Please support the bond issues in the November election!
— Stagg Newman
Candler
Yeah, no. I don’t trust the money will be spent well or even as promised.