The developers of The Cliffs need to stop this tragic development

Yes, the ripping of the mountaintop in Fairview has started, once again, to make way for The Cliffs at High Carolina's gated development and Tiger Woods golf course. With 1,000 to 1,200 home lots planned on roughly 3,000 acres, High Carolina is one of the largest residential developments in Buncombe County's history.

As a neighbor to this tragedy, we hear the excavating equipment ripping away at the mountains.

We see dump trucks by the numbers on Old Fort Road in Fairview, the south entrance to this development. They are filled to the brim with remnants of this ancient range of mountains: the byproducts resold on Old Charlotte/Highway U.S. 74 in the form of rocks for landscaping and mulch from the trees removed to make room for this massive development and golf course.

We will once again see bear movement as they desperately seek new habitat. We will again worry about chemical run-offs contaminating our wells. As a community, those concerns have yet to be addressed by Jim Anthony, president of The Cliffs at High Carolina.

Our pleas in the spirit of conservation and reasoning have been to no avail. I suppose the public hearings were held to appease us, give us the delusion we were being listened to.

We are not unaffected by this development.

I had proposed, in a letter awhile back in the Mountain Xpress, a plea to Jim Anthony and Tiger Woods to hear our cries and stop this madness. Break this cycle of abuse of power and destruction and choose to preserve. Do something that really matters and then name this 3,000-acre the Tiger Woods Nature Preserve. Create a proud legacy nature [and] all its inhabitants could all live with.

But no awakening yet for Tiger Woods and certainly none for the developers that continue to destroy these mountains for the sake of the almighty dollar. When all the mountaintops are gone, I guess we'll stop "complaining."

We weep for you, Mother Nature.

— Cindy Hady
Fairview

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8 thoughts on “The developers of The Cliffs need to stop this tragic development

  1. rick

    I agree that The Cliffs is a tragedy. Denude the mountain just so some well-heeled folks can knock a little white ball around. To Tiger Woods, Jim Anthony, and everyone else profiting from this, we, the mountains, and the creatures that live there are meaningless- unworthy of a passing thought. Future historians and archeologists will shake their heads in bewilderment that our culture supported such practices.

  2. weeping for nature will not stop greedy self serving developers…maybe some acts of civil disobedience will get their attention

  3. Tsrp

    Greedy self-serving developers? What about the people that would like to live there– are they being served? And what about the roads and highways that we all use– and the neighborhoods already covering the earth? Don’t act like we consumers don’t contribute to nature being replaced with homes, businesses, and roads. Unless we limit birthrate, there is only 1 way development is going.

  4. Mitch

    The birthrate has nothing to do with a millionaire golf community. There’s plenty of land for housing that wouldn’t impact the mountain tops.

  5. Dionysis

    “Greedy self-serving developers?”

    Yes. Is there any other kind?

    “What about the people that would like to live there—are they being served?”

    Oh, well then, forget the environmental destruction and the erosion of what makes this area geologically a jewel, forget the impact on municipal services, congestion and the ‘well being’ of those who don’t find the destruction of the oldest mountains on the planet for the benefit of a relatively few well-healed transplants desireable. As long as the developers and Tiger Woods increase their bank accounts and a handful of affluent ‘elites’ are catered to, what’s the problem?

  6. francois Manavit

    We, the neighbors in Fairview used to come together and a pretty good task force was created two years ago . We used all what was neccessary to question the development , making it difficult to destroy natural habitat , trouts and else . Cliff has been ordered by the DWQ to disclose the list of chemicals they will use on the golf course . Follow-up on that issue will do a good start to renergize neighbors .I have done my best but due to my divorce have moved out of Fairview .
    Do not count of the Democrats of Fairview , don’t waste your time there ! Being alone does not matter as long as you are perseverant in your quest but stop crying on mother nature she is crying already !

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