Changes considered for administration of land use laws in Bladen County

ELIZABETHTOWN — Members of the Bladen County commissioners and the Planning Board have expressed a willingness to consider changes to land use laws.

The two panels met jointly on Tuesday night at the Powell-Melvin Agricultural Service Center.

Jean Klein, regional planning director of the Lumber River Council of Governments, carried the boards through a presentation. She was joined by Jan Hester-Maynor, special projects planner with the COG.

At the end, there were questions, and some discussions related to the recent rezoning request on N.C. 87 by Fayetteville developer Joe Riddle. Topics that seemed to draw more interest than others were a fee schedule, the process for rezoning application, and authority on special use permits.

A suggested layer for the rezoning application process was to add a meeting of adjacent landowners — not to be confused with a formal public hearing — prior to the planning board recommendation.

A review of uses in the zones was also suggested.

Klein gave an overview and, in some points, shared specifics in the Chapter 160D changes recently made; reviewed rules and clarified roles played for planning and zoning in Bladen County; reviewed and clarified types of land use decisions that will likely be made and reviewed the steps in those decisions; and briefly reviewed the fee schedule for land use decisions.

For the latter, she suggested Bladen County is significantly below where it needs to be. The result is many costs are absorbed by the county. A corresponding proposed rate schedule was included in handouts, with most fees at least doubling and one quadrupled.

The proposed fee schedule includes 11 new collection points.

For fees to change, a recommendation goes from the Planning Board to the county commissioners for approval, said Greg Elkins. He’s the director of the Planning Department for the county and attended the meeting, as did County Manager Greg Martin.

Chairman David Hursey, the Rev. Corey Lyons, Joe Allen, Tom Lancaster and Evan Britt were present from the Planning Board, with Angela Hines, Ginger Tatum and Don White engaged virtually. Chairman Charles Ray Peterson, Mark Gillespie, Ray Britt, Dr. Danny Ellis, Arthur Bullock and Rodney Hester were present for the commissioners, with the Rev. Cameron McGill, Dr. Ophelia Munn-Goins and Michael Cogdell engaged virtually.