THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 24, 1994 TAG: 9406240526
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940624 LENGTH: TUNIS
Mandating more thorough and coordinated control of growth are among the major draft recommendations approved Thursday by the North Carolina Coastal Futures Committee.
{REST} The 15-member panel was created last year by Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. to study the successes and failures of the 1974 Coastal Area Management Act, whose rules govern development and planning in the state's 20 coastal counties.
Thursday was the first time the group's two main subcommittees, focusing on land management and water quality, presented their initial suggestions. The draft proposals will be available for public input at a meeting today and throughout the coming month.
``To get public acceptance of the results, it's absolutely essential that we get this kind of review by the public,'' said committee Chairman L. Richardson Preyer, a former congressman and retired federal judge.
The committee's reports include nearly 200 specific recommendations in areas of land-use planning, water conservation and environmental education. Various proposals call for better access to public waterways, stronger regional cooperation and tighter rules protecting water resources. No cost estimates have been prepared.
A key to putting more teeth in the coastal management act will be to increase the importance of mandatory land-use plans, committee members said. Each coastal county was required to create a detailed growth plan that analyzed local economic and environmental issues. More than 60 cities also developed land-use plans, which must be updated every five years and approved by the state's Coastal Resources Commission.
But under the current law, cities and counties aren't required to follow the plans they develop. Most of the larger communities do implement their plans, but committee members said every government should have to.
The committee also intends to recommend that land-use plans include detailed wastewater treatment plans and be coordinated with drinking water plans to create a comprehensive strategy for dealing with local growth.
Committee members, meeting at the Roanoke-Chowan Wildlife Club just outside Winton, approved the draft recommendations in the morning and spent the afternoon picking them apart.
Members argued about the specific language, added and deleted words and phrases, and debated how the public would react to specific proposals.
Other tentative recommendations include:
Increasing public participation in land-use plan development.
Requiring all state agencies to comply with land-use plans.
Streamlining the Coastal Area Management Act permit process.
Increasing protection of the region's ``natural heritage,'' including state parks, estuarine shorelines, fisheries habitats and wetlands.
Developing a long-range transportation plan for the Outer Banks and barrier islands.
Providing steady funding to acquire land for public access.
Creating new rules or programs for marinas, farms, foresters and builders.
Increasing fines for water quality violators.
Expanding environmental education programs in public schools and universities.
Encouraging ``relocation and retreat'' from eroding shorelines.
by CNB