A Change For Better
To the Editor:
In response to Rick Brand’s 8/9/06 Henderson Dispatch editorial:
Again comes the good minister with yet another in a series of messages to advocate countywide zoning.
Are those “zoning demons” bothering the reverend again?
You try soaking them out… scrubbing them out… but they just won’t go away!
Oh well…
Rev. Brand has been doing a bit of reading it seems. Could it be that within the two paragraphs of text he shared with us are the solutions to Vance County’s problems?
What a wonderful thought… but it’s just not that simple.
Whereas comprehensive land use plans and their associated mechanisms CAN be useful if used appropriately- more often than not, the process turns bad and the results to a community become adverse in many ways. Such is the case now in Vance County regarding the proposed countywide zoning ordinance.
Zoning CANNOT be useful, as he puts it, “to the whole community” if a selected few control the process from the start and into its future. More important, there is an abundance of evidence to support the issue of zoning abuse and failures- statewide and nationwide- for those interested in obtaining accurate information.
Our county has serious problems. The facts clearly show that zoning cannot solve any of them. Zoning by the current proposed ordinance will serve to worsen and curse our future. Segregating (zoning) our “problem areas” away from the “affluent” will not bring a bright future for all. We must FACE our problems- not place them in a “zoning closet.”
I wish Rev. Brand would spend his future time dealing with just the facts regarding zoning and not just the promotional theories and propaganda. I challenge him to stop advocating a process and product so poorly handled in our county. If he did so, he could join with others and focus on the solutions that produce real results. For a change, he could bring some good to a county that is desperately in need.