You know sometimes I am amazed at the power of this network. The Asheville City Council is meeting today to discuss potential revisions to the steep slope ordinance that the city is planning implementing. The main sticking point is that whether to have the ordinance cover property beginning at 2200 feet elevation ( backed by many environmental and citizens groups) or go up and begin covering property at 2500 feet elevation(backed by many developers, builders, and an affordable housing coalition). There is a concern that by going to 2500 feet that little of the property in City of Asheville will be covered by the ordinance and that many new homes for sale could be sited on slopes that really do not warrant that level of development.
So I had sent am email to the mayor and all council members before the April 24th Council meeting to express my support for the 2200 feet plan. The vote was postponed though until today May 8th. I sent another email again to the Mayor and City Council members but this time included a link to my blog "Is the Green Movement Anti-growth" I also inserted the picture of the sustainable development model I had seen on Wikipedia to just make the point that there was a model of sustainable development I was working from.
So off the email goes and within an half hour I have gotten a reply from the mayor thanking me for my detailed email and asking if I have any pictures of landslides from the area because she and her staff would like to see them before the meeting. Now I did not say anything about landslides in my original email and can only surmise that the mayor somehow got to my comments on Janeannes landslide blog and figured I had access to some pictures which of course I didn't. But I made a quick call to Rick Wooten of the North Carolina Geological Surveyand he provided up to date information about landslide issues and some pictures which I forwarded to the mayor. So we will see what happens tonight, but the RainPower of blogs and comments was plainly evident for me to see today. Cool!
UPDATE: It looks like the steep slope issue was delayed again, No coverage in the local media so that means more time to educate. The issue is complicated by the fact that the affordable housing folks fell this ordinance will limit areas where affordable housing could be sited. I have to explore why the city could not grant exceptions to the ordinance for developments that meet HUD affordable housing criteria. Its not like there will be a sprawl of affordable housing developments popping up in our community with land prices being what they are.
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