News

COUNTY SHOOTS DOWN HORSE SHOE DEVELOPMENT

By Bill Moss, Published: December 6, 2016

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners on Monday shot down a rezoning request for a development of 225 rental cottages and apartments at Horse Shoe Farm, agreeing with 21 opponents that the high-density use was wrong for the winding South Rugby Road and rural character of the area.

Around 65 Horse Shoe residents in all turned out to oppose the rezoning, which had received a unanimous recommendation for approval from the county Planning Board in October.

What remained unclear after the vote, however, is whether the developer will come back with an alternative plan or proceed with a high-density development that would require no zoning change.

John Turchin, a third generation developer from Miami who also developed a 1,500-acre project in Banner Elk, explained that as the listing agent trying to sell Horse Shoe Farm he had tried equestrian market and had considered a typical single-family home development. He described the development, called the Sanctuary at Eagles Nest, a “lifestyle destination community” made up of 700- to 1,200-square-foot cottages, three miles of walking trails, a farm-to-table restaurant, fitness center and other amenities.

Brian Gulden, an Asheville attorney who represents the owner of Willow Run Farm, told the board that it may be adopting spot zoning if it approved the request. Gulden, a former Henderson County planner, said the request amounted to spot zoning because it would single out one piece of property surrounded by a much larger area of more restrictive R-2 zoning.

Tamarac resident Charles Snead, like many of his neighbors, urged the board to uphold the zoning that Horse Shoe residents recommended when the Board of Commissioners adopted the small area plan for Etowah-Horse Shoe.
“We were going to make a plan that was for planned growth, not just helter-skelter," Snead said. He suggested that commissioners would be choosing between “people who live here who you represent and some very nice and capable people from outside who want to make a buck.”

Walter Carpenter, an attorney who lives about seven-tenths a mile from Horse Shoe Farm, said: “It was zoned in 2010 and I haven’t heard anything that indicates changes that have occurred in six years that would justify changing the zoning designation. The proposal is for 554 parking spaces so that gives you an idea” of the traffic. “That is a significant increase in the number of cars on South Rugby.”
Bill O’Connor, a former county commissioner, said that if the commissioners want to change the comp plan they should take a broader look than individual mixed-use requests and rezoning changes.
“Missing from our plans are processes for amendments,” he said. “I urge the commissioners to consider process for plan amending soon. … I suggest that this request violates the character of our community in both the spirit and letter of our plan in the entire planning process.”

Grey Jernigan, the executive director of the Hendersonville office of Mountain True, said the development posed a threat to the French Broad, which forms a boundary of the property. Increased runoff and more paved surface "is inevitable from a high-density development such as this," he said.

Robert Deutsch, who represented Turchin, said the comments from opponents failed to recognize that the applicant could build 206 multi-family units with no rezoning at all.

"Fifty percent of it will be left undeveloped," Deutsch said. "As for benefit to the community they're going to get a sewer line that the developer's going to pay for. I would ask you to follow the ordinance, consider what is already allowed, which is very similar to to what's being considered only less regulated, consider what the DOT is tellling you and allow this development."

But all five commissioners voted no and four out of five expressed serious misgivings about the proposal.

Commissioner Grady Hawkins called the traffic study "invalid" because of the times that it had collected data and how it was interpreted.

Commissioner Bill Lapsley, a civil engineer, said tying the development into the Cane Creek sewer system was a bad idea, not a good idea as the developer suggested.

With the denial of the rezoning request, the developer could come back with a revised plan that meets the zoning regulations.

Turchin has the property under option and could presumably pull out. But he said he expects to come back with another plan.

"No, we're still going to develop the property," he said. "You heard what they said. We can still develop it for 206 units."