North Carolina’s Maggie Valley Town Hall was full on December 14 for the December Board of Aldermen meeting where the future of development in Maggie Valley was discussed.
North Carolina Representatives Mark Pless (R-Haywood) and Mike Clampitt (R-Bryson City) were also present.
According to a report, Ghost Town developer Frankie Wood hosted a meeting for Maggie Valley business owners where he made his case, not just regarding what the future holds for the mountain top theme park, but also for the development of any kind within the valley.
He said that if the residents weren’t vigilant, the governing board could eliminate certain rights granted to landowners.
“They’re trying now to restrict everybody’s property because it’s the only way they can do it. They can’t just target me like they’ve been doing, so they gotta get all local folks, business owners in this town and go and more or less put a restriction on their properties and devalue your property,” said Wood.
The most interesting thing for Wood and other Maggie Valley landowners was the vote to hold an open hearing on stopping campgrounds, RV parks, and RV PUDs in C-1 and C-2 zones. Wood has been approved for one RV PUD and has applied for more.
Alderman Jim Owens raised the issue during the meeting.
“I don’t like the idea of a moratorium at all. You have people out here who have hundreds of thousands, a million dollars in property, and some of those people spent that money for this purpose, with it being an allowed use in our UDO (Unified Development Ordinance) now. So now that these people have purchased this property, we’re going to put them on hold, and I just don’t think that’s right,” said Alderman Tammy Wight.
Following Attorney Brian Gulden’s advice, the board decided not to adopt an amendment to ban campgrounds and RV parks and instead decided to hold a public hearing for a moratorium on RV parks and campgrounds.
A moratorium creates an interim pause on campgrounds and RV parks instead of an amendment to the text that will need to be approved by the planning board and would be more permanent. If the moratorium is approved, it is expected to last for 61 or more days and as long as six months until the unified development ordinance is passed.
“The reason a moratorium might be more appropriate is you all have a UDO that is coming forward in the next couple of weeks or months,” said Gulden.
“If, for instance, you had and considered a text amendment, and the text amendment passed that said ‘we’re removing campgrounds, RV parks, RV PUDs and storages from the C-1 and C-2 district,’ that wouldn’t allow anybody in the community to develop their property in the C-1 or C-2 district for any of those reasons that you removed from the ordinance. In essence, it infringes upon someone’s investment-backed expectations.”
However, it allows the board to pause campgrounds, RV parks, RV storage, and RV PUDs until they can identify the right district to permit them, any restrictions it wants to place on them, and the location where it would like to place the facilities. It allows the board to pause until it can create better rules for this kind of development.
“From my perspective as a lawyer, the moratorium is a far better tool to use than outright ban on campgrounds, RV parks, RV storage,” said Gulden.
“If we do the ban, it would be forevermore,” said Mayor Mike Eveland.
After a lengthy discussion, the moratorium was approved. Eveland, Owens, and Hinton were in favor, while Phillip Wight and Tammy Wight were against. The public hearing will be held at the January 11 board of aldermen meeting.