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Top 10: 10, 9, 8 (2)

Homeowners who live near the Tap Root dairy property opposed the rezoning in 2019 and this year, although a public hearing in July drew a smaller crowd because of coronavirus restrictions. [LIGHTNING FILE PHOTO]

By Bill Moss, Published: December 19, 2020

By any measure, 2020 goes into the history books as one of the most extraordinary years in our history.

A divided nation made its choices in the elections. A long-running zoning dispute over housing on the Tap Root Dairy property finally came to an end while the land-use fight over an asphalt plant in East Flat Rock fizzled to an uncertain resolution. Downtown could be transformed by hotel and parking deck plans that neared the dirt-turning stage as the year drew to a close. Cloaked over every hour of every day from March 3 on was the coronavirus and its wide-ranging impacts. Covid-19 cases devastated long-term care facilities as the virus swept in. The pandemic claimed the Flat Rock Playhouse and Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra seasons, the North Carolina Apple Festival, prep football and more. Here is the Lightning’s annual Top 10 news stories from an unforgettable year.

No. 10: Housing boom

Not since the pre-recession boom of the early 2000s has seen Henderson County so many residential units in the pipeline. After more than two years of trying, the Johnston family finally won the county’s approval for 699 dwellings — 472 single-family homes and 227 townhomes on 300 acres on Butler Bridge Road at the French Broad River. Also winning approval this year were 126 senior apartments on eight acres on U.S. 64 in Laurel Park, homes 45 homes on 16 acres between Fifth Avenue and U.S. 64 that had been in the Ewbank family since the 1800s, the Arcadia Views development of 56 cottages on U.S. 64 across from Hunters Crossing and 50 homes in Mills River Crossing. The apartment boom also continued in Fletcher and a long-term care company won approval for a 58-bed assisted living facility and 83 independent living apartments on 8½ acres on South Allen Road.

9. 2020 Election.President Trump makes a fighting gesture to supporters after landing at Asheville Regional Airport for a visit to Flavor 1st Packers & Growers. [PATRICK SULLIVAN/Hendersonville Lightning]

This year featured an election season that brought a presidential visit to Henderson County for the first time in 32 years, a congressional race that drew a national spotlight and a strong showing for the Republican Party in statewide and local races. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue toured the Flavor 1st packing house in July to show off the administration’s Farmer to Family Food Box program. The Trump campaign must have liked how the visit went. About a month later, Trump landed at Asheville Regional Airport and made the trip to Mills River, praising the farmers who grew the produce, the packing operation that boxed it up and the truckers that delivered it to food pantries. Because the departing occupant became President Trump’s chief of staff, the 11th Congressional District election drew attention from the Washington press corps. Republican Madison Cawthorn made headlines and made history, becoming the youngest member of Congress, at age 25, and the first from Henderson County since Monroe Minor Redden, who served from 1947 to 1953. Despite fielding hard-working candidates who raised money, the Democratic Party could not move the needle among the county’s conservative voters. State Reps. Jake Johnson and Tim Moffitt and Jake Johnson, both appointed to their seats in 2019 and 2020, won election to the House. A mourning Board of Commissioners appointed Daniel Andreotta to fill the seat made vacant by five-term Commissioner Charlie Messer.

8. Big Yellow Taxi

The vehicle that rode the fear of paving paradise to a decisive victory in the November 2019 election was clicking on four cylinders in 2020. Led by Anne Coletta, the slate propelled by broad opposition to the Highland Lake Road project continued to press policy shifts in the village of Flat Rock. Although they failed to scrap the road widening, Coletta, Tom Carpenter, David Dethero and Mayor Nick Weedman voted to kill a $40,000 greenway and sidewalk study, continued to push for rollbacks of the roadwork and tried to impose term limits on Planning Board members. Thanksgiving week, two of the three remaining members who had voted in 2018 to endorse the road project — Sheryl Jamerson and Paige Posey — submitted their resignations. The council then appointed replacements who had opposed the road project during public meetings in 2018 and 2019, although Susan Gregory and Pam Tiles both said they considered the controversial project a settled issue.