Using enviro regs instead of ordinances
Initial email to Amy Knisely
Amy, I just discovered the network of trails on the old Oakes estate in Black Mountain, now owned by Montreat College, formerly an Episcopal retreat center. I loved it; Tom Hatley and I walked it and he told me the history of the forest, as he read it. I was excited by a whole new place to walk, that was easy enough that Rosa Lee would want to walk there, by the Swannanoa and the Tomahawk creek and other tributaries. Katharine discovered it as we are doing our itinerant exploration of the upper river. Dottie has a great environmental educatio classroom there you are probably familiar with, glass walls on three side of a bluff looking down on the river.
Then I read in the Valley Echo that it was going to be developed because the state gave the conservative, PCA college $30m to create a western hub of cybersecurity education, with four four story buildings housing 160 students. Though there is some money for trails and bike paths, it will likely be manicured and kept within limits.[ https://www.thevalleyecho.com/all-news/town-council-considers-montreat-college-black-mountain-campus-zoning-request]
I was sad, feeling the loss of what I had just discovered. The trails might be lost or damaged, and a secluded riparian area over run with geeky students who are in the metaverse but not connected to the land by the river.
Then I had an idea. We ask Jessica and her students to do an initial biodiversity baseline study; you can do it with apps that measure bird calls, as you know better than I. It’s a great place for citizen science as well. We add a simple module to the environmental assessment report on the project that includes a biodiversity baseline. And we don’t want biodiversity to be degraded. So we don’t need a new ordinance, we just add a biodiversity module to environmental assessment reports that expects no degradation. We act as if the river has rights, and we measure those rights, and perhaps even give a tax break or something if the project enhances biodiversity.
What do you think? Jessica seems central to the idea if its to become a reality or is even worth considering. Don’t pass a law; change the regulations. Get the same result, without a big fight over Dillon’s rule.