Opinion

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Beware the zeal for regulatory repeal

By Bill Moss, Published: November 16, 2013

What's really going on here is an attempt by developers and other business interests to intimidate elected officials and roll back local government regulation and fees in the name of economic development and job creation. The Hendersonville business owners are too busy to ride down to Raleigh, where they would actually encounter a friendly ear for deregulation in the current General Assembly, or book a flight to Washington, which is to blame for pesky (and costly to comply with) laws like the 41-year-old Clean Water Act. Business owners can influence city and county elections, and that is their right. We think this faction is misreading last week's election outcome, in which they won one out of three races.
Volk easily turned back the challenge from their standard-bearer for mayor. Jerry Smith won re-election. A schoolteacher and the council's strongest advocate of the failed Berkeley Mills Park bonds, Smith is hardly the alter ego of PEP lobbyist Larry Rogers.
The new City Council has all but promised to launch a new regulation review, so we're in for another round of regulation-bashing that will discover once more that the problems are rooted in long-settled state and national policies or that they exist to protect neighborhoods from noxious intrusions.
If the election was a mandate for a broad rollback of development rules, the city would be installing Mr. Stephens as mayor next month.
Miller has promised to give business owners an ear and a voice. We take him at his word that he's made no commitment to gut the city's zoning code. The council has already enacted part of his platform by dramatically rolling back the impact fees for new water users (and shifting the cost to new homes). His strongest campaign point had more to do with the council's lack of curiosity about the impact of its policy decisions. He's already won the argument.
Yet the pressure has never been greater on the City Council to indulge the development lobby's enthusiasm for regulatory rollback, reduction or repeal of the privilege tax and who knows what else. The county's regulation review effort launched a snipe hunt of little consequence other than to point fingers at City Hall and the Board of Commissioners itself, which had just voted to override a unanimous Planning Board recommendation for a Dollar General in Horse Shoe.
Now developers have got city zoning, tax policy and environmental regulators in the cross hairs. It will be up to the newly elected City Council to sort fact from phony anecdotes, act in the community's broader interest and preserve the sound planning policies that make the city desirable for business to start with.