My master plan of a chessboard where all ye are my little pawns. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
Jake Frankel of the Mountain Xpress asks what the Buncombe County Commissioners have done with their 2012 Sustainability Plan.
To date, for example, the county has yet to build any of the 80 miles of greenways called for in its 2012 master plan, though a $50,000 donation from New Belgium Brewing Co. is helping fund additional planning. And while no price tag for fully implementing the greenway plan has been calculated, a 2010 feasibility study for the proposed 18-mile stretch along the Swannanoa River/U.S. 70 corridor estimated that it alone would cost $10.3 million.
The county is being more proactive getting people to put their land in conservation easements.
According to the latest figures, the county has spent $6.3 million protecting 5,262 acres of land from development since 2004. That includes 1,424 acres protected since the sustainability plan’s adoption in 2012, at a cost of roughly $800,000.
Personally, I think the practice of persuading leadership that master plans are made only to collect dust on the proverbial bottom shelf is an evil ploy to get them into the practice of passing them and caring less until something really monstrous is passed.
