By Jessie Burchette
Salisbury Post
After over a year of studies, discussions and debate, residents countywide will get their first chance to weigh in on a proposed west Rowan land use plan.The Rowan County Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the plan at its meeting Monday at 7 p.m.
Board members are expecting a large turnout and may limit each speaker to three minutes.
The Planning Board has made wholesale changes in the plan developed by the Land Use Steering Committee. It’s now more development friendly.During three work sessions, the Planning Board struck out much of the language designed to deter or limit residential or commercial development.
The biggest change deals with the Planning Board’s changes in the Area 1 recommendations.
The Steering Committee had designated most of West Rowan ó the area north of N.C. 152 to the Davie County line ó as an area where traditional major subdivisions would be discouraged. Instead the committee proposed encouraging conservation subdivisions, designed to cluster homes and provide more open space. The plan also suggested taking the minimum lot size to 2 to 4 acres or more.
Area 1 is now open to traditional subdivisions and the revamped plan also eliminates proposed buffers between subdivisions and agricultural uses.
Virtually all proposals for sign, lighting and landscape regulations in commercial areas have also been eliminated.
The board also eliminated or revised recommendations from the committee pushing farmland preservation.
The revamped plan eliminates a recommendation to establish a county-funded position to pursue grants for farmland preservation.
And the plans now call for “voluntary and privately funded” farmland preservation.
The Planning Board will vote on its recommendations to send to the Rowan County Board of Commissioners.
The Planning Board meets in the Cohen Administrative Offices Building, 130 W. Innes St.