, , Sign up for e-news

UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT ORDINANCE DELAYED
Overlay districts are out

By Jon Mayhew

Lincoln County Commissioners Monday night pushed the
implementation of the controversial Unified Development
Ordinance (UDO) from March 31 to July 1 due to controversies
arising from the document itself.

The Carolina Scoop has learned that not only is the document,
for which the county paid an outside firm $180,000 to draft,
fraught with spelling errors but some of the regulations are
illegal in North Carolina.

Commissioner Carrol Mitchem pointed out the issue to Building
and Land Development (BALD) director Kelly Adkins.

“I asked Kelly if there were things illegal in the UDO and he said
there were,” said Mitchem.

Mitchem, a Vale farmer and restaurant owner, said one area of
illegal regulation centered around agriculture. In either the urban
or suburban area of the UDO, any kind of agriculture is illegal.

Mitchem said the provision is in direct violation of state law.

“Agriculture can’t be regulated per state law,” said Mitchem. “If I
wanted to build a chicken house behind (commissioner) Bruce
Carlton’s residence, I can do it.”

Mitchem has already told county officials he thinks the county
should ask for a $180,000 refund.

“We should either have a refund or find out how much we have
left to owe, then not pay them until the errors are corrected,”
said Mitchem.

The current UDO is more than 380 pages long and was
comprised of ordinances from other areas of the state and
country according to commissioners.

Commissioners on Monday night also instructed BALD and
county staff to take the overlay district regulations completely out of the UDO.

That’s after a heated public hearing held last Monday, where
residents overwhelmingly told commissioners they didn’t want a
new layer of regulations over their land.

Mitchem was the commissioner last week who was voted down
in his request to remove overlay districts.

However, according to Mitchem, commissioners voted
unanimously Monday night to remove the provisions that could
have taken 500 feet of land on either side of a major highway,
like Highway 321 Business or Highway 27.

“That’s what we should have done in the first place,” said
Mitchem.

HOME