The town of Sylva has approved a 10.8-square mile “area of consideration” and is looking toward the southern N.C. 107 corridor as a future extra-territorial jurisdiction.

The decision comes on the heels of a forum during which Department of Transportation officials said the next step in developing long-range transportation plan for Jackson County lies in the hands of local government.

The 10.8-square-mile area roughly follows the shape as Sylva’s existing town limits, with a greater emphasis placed on eastward lands encompassing Allen Branch, Fisher Creek, Cope Creek and Fairview.

“It’s a pretty vast area of consideration,” said town planner Jim Aust.

However, naming an area of consideration simply means that officials and planners recognize that the area itself impacts the town — either through existing development or inevitable future development. The declaration has no affect on development or existing businesses in the area — it is, as its name implies, an area to be considered.

To truly control the type of development going on around the town, Aust said that town officials must make a decision to either annex or create an extra territorial jurisdiction. Unless town aldermen are willing to take those steps, they should just quit talking about it, Aust said during a joint meeting between aldermen and the town’s planning board.

“I’ve got to know something because we’ve done this enough we should be fairly familiar with (the annexation process) by now,” Aust said.

Town board members have voted down the planning board’s recommended annexations along Nanny’s Lane, near the proposed Lowe’s site at the intersection of N.C. 116 and N.C. 107, at Hall Heights, located adjacent to the U.S. 23 Business and N.C. 107 intersection, and on Cope Creek, which is a side road connecting U.S 23/74 to N.C. 107.

The primary consideration in the decision not to annex those areas had to do with the cost of providing water and sewer, something that Sylva has done for other annexed areas. However, an official with the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said the town is not legally required to provide that service.

Since water and sewer services are run by Tuckasegee Water and Sewer Authority, a non-town entity, the town could choose not to pay to provide those services, said David Lawrence, a professor of Public Law and Government with the Institute.

“If you’ve got a situation where the utilities are being provided by some other government unit, it is not clear that the town has any financial obligations to pay for extensions,” said Lawrence, whose specialties include water and sewer issues.

However, during the joint meeting, town Public Works Director Dan Schaffer blamed the failed annexations on something else — nepotism. Annexations decisions should not be based on a desire to keep friends from paying more taxes. Rather, the decision should be based on what is better for the town, Schaffer said.

“You can’t consider friendships when you’re on a board,” Schaffer said.

While annexation would mean more taxes, it would also mean police and fire protection — something that would most likely lower insurance rates — and garbage pick-up.

Creation of an ETJ would give the town power to exert zoning controls over an area, but residents and business owners would not face additional taxes. ETJs commonly are thought of as a precursor to annexation, as they essentially prepare an area, bringing it up to town standards in terms of roads and appearance, Lawrence said.

Within Sylva’s approved area of consideration, Aust defined two “areas of concern,” one located along the southern N.C. 107 corridor and another eastward on the U.S. 23/74 corridor toward WestCare’s Harris Regional Hospital.

The N.C. 107 corridor, known as the “primary area of concern,” is the greatest traffic generator for the town. It funnels much of the traffic for Western Carolina University, Southwestern Community College and Smoky Mountain High School, and is home to a several retailers including a Super Wal-Mart. This same corridor has been talked about as a potential site for additional hotels, chain restaurants and a Sam’s Club bulk shopping store.

Also, developer Bill Melton has purchased a 10-acre tract behind Wal-Mart that will be used as a housing development and the county is well on its way with developing the services complex off N.C. 116 that will include the Department of Social Services, senior housing and an emergency responder center.

Out toward the hospital along the U.S. 23/74, hospital services have attracted the development of professional office space and will prove to be popular housing location with commercial development along the highway, Aust said.

Town and planning board members agreed that the issue of growth along the N.C. 107 corridor is the most imminent threat to the town and agreed to look into the “primary area of concern” as an ETJ, with the U.S. 23/74 corridor as a potential phase two.

“Why do a phase one or a phase two, why not do it all at once?” said town board member Maurice Moody.

“We’d need to book the Ramsey Center,” replied Aust, referring to the crowds that would most likely fill the arena for public input hearings on an area so large.

DOT wants local government leadership

While annexing — or even creating an ETJ — may prove controversial, the movement to at least plan for the future is a necessary part of creating a long-range transportation plan.

Following years of heated debate over whether to build a “southern loop” — a bypass that would connect U.S. 441 and U.S. 23/74 through the Webster community — DOT officials, local municipalities, WCU, SCC and the grassroots advocacy group Smart Roads finally agreed to create a transportation task force. The task force, they said, would study alternate methods of alleviating traffic within Jackson County and create a 30-year plan for the future.

After two meetings the task force reached a roadblock. The DOT’s Statewide Planning Branch Transportation Engineering Supervisor Beverly Williams informed the group that the DOT was legally barred from going any further with the process until local government officials adopt some form of countywide planning.

Planning, however, does not mean zoning. In this case, planning does not even require anything definitive. All they need is a “blobby map,” said Janet D’Ignazio, Senior Research Associate at the Center for Transportation and the Environment at N.C. State University.

D’Ignazio — the DOT’s former chief planning and environmental officer whose Sylva appearance was sponsored by Smart Roads in an effort to get the transportation planning process moving again — explained the 27 step method of developing a 30-year plan, emphasizing the importance of data collection and analysis. Without proper data collection and analysis — of land use, socio-economic and environmental factors — the rest of the process is essentially pointless, D’Ignazio said. These are the first figures that create the big picture of what’s going on in Jackson County.

Gathering that data is entirely up to the task force, D’Ignazio said, not the DOT.

“This part of the process is yours, you own it,” D’Ignazio said.

This kind of planning for the future is what will facilitate local governments to get on the ball when it comes to development, as each new store, new housing development, brings new traffic, D’Ignazio said. Without a collaborative plan, one that decides how the region as a whole wants to grow, the growth will lead to a system overload.

“Every time DOT allows another driveway permit they give up another piece of the mobility,” D’Ignazio said.

“If you don’t tell us how you want to grow and develop, and we put in that road it’s going to happen to you.”