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Cleveland County approves zoning, land-use designations for 52 of 58 former Kings Mountain ETJ parcels; six deferred
Summary
At its January meeting the Cleveland County Board of Commissioners approved county zoning districts and future land-use designations for 52 of 58 parcels relinquished by the City of Kings Mountain under House Bill 909, deferring action on six parcels pending anticipated city action.
Cleveland County commissioners voted unanimously at their January meeting to apply county land-use plan designations and zoning districts to 52 of 58 parcels that were previously in the City of Kings Mountain extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), and deferred action on six parcels pending anticipated action by Kings Mountain City Council.
Planning Director Chris Martin told the board the parcels lie beyond the city’s one-mile limit and, because of House Bill 909, Kings Mountain cannot apply planning and inspection services to parcels more than one mile beyond its contiguous city limits. Martin said the county will therefore assume development services for the parcels, including planning, building inspections and code enforcement.
County staff mapped each parcel to a county land-use designation and a proposed zoning district. Martin said staff prioritized matching the character of surrounding areas and used two growth-designation categories: primary growth areas (higher-intensity development expected over 15 years) and secondary growth areas (likely to remain residential). On the proposed zoning map, Martin said white denotes traditional residential districts, yellow denotes neighborhood/planned-residential areas and purple denotes industrial uses — a purple parcel on the map corresponds to a mine.
The county notified property owners and nearby parcels by mail, posted signs, placed newspaper ads and published an interactive map on the county website, Martin said. He added the planning staff visited neighborhoods to determine the character of the areas rather than focusing narrowly on individual lots.
The Planning Board recommended approval and suggested two changes: reclassifying parcel 41860 as restricted residential to match its Gold Run neighborhood, and zoning parcel 593082 as rural agricultural after the property owner expressed a desire to preserve rural character. During the public hearing resident Philip Rupp asked whether agricultural activities such as horses, cows and chickens would still be permitted; Martin replied that North Carolina law places limits on county regulation of farm activities and that parcels used for bona fide farming can be exempt from local zoning restrictions.
Commissioner action: a motion to approve the planning and zoning jurisdictions as recommended by the Planning Board and to defer action on parcel identification numbers “11615116271287913060,” “13063” and “54373” (as read into the record) passed unanimously.
Why it matters: the change shifts local permitting and code enforcement responsibilities from the city to the county for the affected parcels, and the applied county designations will guide future development and inspections.
Votes at the meeting on this item were recorded as unanimous approval of the motion to adopt the staff-recommended designations for the 52 parcels and defer six parcels for anticipated city action.
