By Gene Galin
Pittsboro, NC – Over the last few months I have been video recording public input sessions along with parts of the planning board meetings dealing with zoning and the interim zoning subcommittee meetings.
While I still have some more to add, I have managed to upload 47 videos to YouTube concerning Chatham County wide zoning. I have compiled these into a playlist that you can view.
You will note that most of the public input from folks in the unzoned areas of the county is overwhelmingly against being zoned.
As a former member of the Chatham County Strategic Plan committee I and others went through the process of traveling around the county and gathering input from citizens of various communities before completing the plan and presenting it to the various elected boards in the county.
Personally I am not sure why there seems to be such a rush by some to choose a specific county-wide zoning option before going out to speak to the public.
In this video your see that commissioner Walter Petty tries to get rest of Commissioners to get public input on zoning
[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u70sCaLUmic[/tube]
His suggestion for public input is shut down. Can someone tell me why getting public input before such an important decision a bad idea? Why such a hurry? What is the overwhelming reason to zone the entire county right now?
Some have said we need county wide zoning because of things like the gun range that went up near the cat refuge. Well, one of the planning board members, Anthony Gaeta, came up before the commissioners with a possible solution that does not require zoning the entire county. His solution was a fairly simple one – just pass an ordinance regulating gun ranges in the county.