Madison residents oppose plan to extend town’s ETJ

By Steve Lawson

Published: July 24, 2008

An overflow crowd filled the Madison Board of Aldermen’s meeting room Tuesday evening for a public hearing concerning proposed extensions of the town’s Extra Territorial Jurisdiction.
The first speaker for the evening, Earl Joyce, set the tone for the next 90 minutes of discussion when he told board members he needed nothing from the town.
“We’ve never asked the town of Madison to do nothing for us and, as far as my opinion goes, you know, this plan and stuff like that is just a way of sugar-coating everything as far as, down the road, you’re talking about annexation,” said Joyce, 53, of Mineral Springs Road. “Why y’all want to do us any favors? We don’t need y’all.”
More than half of the 40 residents attending Tuesday’s meeting chose to address the board about the proposed ETJ. Each speaker voiced some type of opposition to the plan, which would add about 200 properties within a one-mile range of the town limits to the existing ETJ. The majority of those properties were east of the town around the U.S. 220 and N.C. 704 interchange.
Many of those voicing opposition, like Sandy Wilkins from Bald Hill Loop Road, expressed concern about maintaining their community’s rural atmosphere.
“My family and I have lived there for over 70 years,” Wilkins said. “We’re just sort of gentlemen farmers now, but there’s a lot of tradition there.”
Although Wilkins said she understood and respected the board’s need to plan ahead for future development in areas outside the town limits, she feared changes would alter the nature of those outlying properties.
“We’re a rural community and we like it that way,” she said. “We attract people to that area from Greensboro and around because they like the rural setting.”
“Historically, we know that when this happens, annexation happens, and we don’t want that.”
Madison mailed public-hearing notices to property owners within the proposed ETJ extensions. Along with the date and time for Tuesday’s meeting, the letter explained the intent and process for changes in the town’s ETJ.
In his opening remarks Tuesday, Mayor Micky Silvers said the proposed changes originated from a Comprehensive Land Use Plan drafted in 2004 with assistance from the Piedmont Triad Council of Government. The purpose of the plan was to provide the town with guidelines for future land development and control of growth, especially along the U.S. 220 corridor and the intersection with N.C. 704.
“Any parcel of land within one mile of the corporate limits may be considered for inclusion in the town’s ETJ,” said Silvers. “ETJ means the town could exercise certain planning powers within the ETJ, as long as the town already enforces those powers within the city limits.”
Silvers explained the town’s powers within the ETJ included zoning, subdivision regulations, historic properties designation, flood control, permitting and building inspections, minimum housing standards and planning.
“All of those are currently being enforced by Rockingham County,” Silvers said. “The difference will be that the properties involved will come under the town’s planning and zoning ordinance and not the county’s.”
“These properties are not to be subject to town taxes. This is not annexation. The town will not take your property from you. This change will only give the town planning jurisdiction over these properties and does not incorporate the properties into the town limits.”
Silvers’ mentioned a list of items requiring permits and inspections that created considerable apprehension among the concerned residents. The list included permits for construction, alteration, repair, renovation, removal or demolition of any building. It also listed “any installation, extension, alteration or general repair to any plumbing, heating and cooling or electrical system.”
Dana Reynolds of Martin Farm Road questioned the reasoning behind including general repairs within the scope of the town’s permitting and inspection ordinance.
“It seems to me that, in your wording, you’re levying more work or permits for the homeowner or individual than even the county would ask for,” Reynolds said. “I don’t feel like that’s doing any of us any favors by levying more financial burden on us by putting us in this situation and putting us in this jurisdiction without any benefits. There are no benefits, but there is more accrued to us as liability and debit.”
Boyd Collins, 72, said he had lived on Mineral Springs Road all of his life and made it without the town’s help.
“If there’s not much difference between the county and the city, why would the city want to take over the job?” Collins asked. “You want to protect us, but protect us from what? What would be the purpose of it?”
Alderman Monte McIntosh told Collins the board’s reasoning was to protect the area’s growth patterns.
“I would think we’d be more aware of what’s going on than the county,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh believed people within the proposed ETJ would have better access to information from the town than from the county when zoning changes or building permits were requested for properties within the area.
Collins disagreed.
“There’s no way you could help us. Period. Thank you,” Collins said.
Following up on Collins questions, Johnny Wilson of Wilbert Drive asked the board about the benefits of coming within the town’s ETJ.
“Everyone in this room, we don’t see police protection from the town,” Wilson said. “We don’t receive water, we don’t receive garbage pickup – none of the benefits the town furnishes those in the town limits. So what would be the benefit for us?”
Wilson posed the hypothetical situation of placing an outbuilding on his property.
“I’d have to get a permit from the town, but I live in the county,” he said.
McIntosh said getting the permit would be no different than having to get one from the county for the same work.
“But I have a say about what goes on in the county,” Wilson said. “I have no say whatsoever about what goes on in the city right here. If we don’t like what’s going on, we can go to the polls the next election and vote us a county commissioner in. We have a say-so that way in what’s going on in our area, but, right now, we have no say at all in what this town board is doing – even though you want to tell us what we can do with our property.”
The inability to influence the town’s board at the voting polls became a major theme for those opposing the ETJ changes. Steven Kintner of Mallard Road said it left the board without any accountability to those residents outside the town limits.
“Right now, if I have a problem with a building inspector, I can go to the county commissioners, who are elected by me,” he said. “No offense, you have a lovely town, but I didn’t elect any of you. You’re disenfranchising my vote.”
Kinter expressed concern that a city inspector would find fault with existing structures on properties within the ETJ and demand they be repaired at the owner’s expense.
“Where is our legal recourse?” he asked. “This is truly a form of taxation without representation.”
Silvers said residents within the town’s ETJ had two representatives on the Madison Planning and Zoning Board, providing the area with a voice in those issues.
But residents attending the meeting countered that those were only two votes out of five on the board.
“We could always be outvoted by the three from within the town limits,” said Charlie Lederer. “Even if not, the aldermen could always overrule the zoning board.”
Following Tuesday’s public hearing, Alderman Art Gwaltney addressed some of the questions raised by area residents. Gwaltney said he understood their concerns and would feel the same way if the positions were reversed.
“The point of all of this, the town took this initiative – at least in the way I see it and I feel – as a way of helping its citizens,” Gwaltney said. “What we’re asking for is simply to have these areas as a part of the ETJ so that it would be convenient for you. Hopefully, we would be a better neighbor than Rockingham County. You can’t do any of those things you talked about without somebody’s permission. So, it’s a question of whether you’d rather get that permission from Rockingham County or from us.”
Gwaltney said he understood the feelings that the residents had more recourse with the county officials they helped elect as opposed to the town council members they did not.
“I very graciously agree with you on that point,” he said. “But I think we’re being made out to be the bad guys here for the wrong reasons. This is talking about ETJ. It’s not about annexation. I understand your concern that you think it’s the first step in what we’re trying to do, but everything I thought we were trying to do was be a help and convenience for you. If you don’t feel that way, I agree with you and I’m not in favor of the ETJ either.”
Gwaltney cast the only dissenting vote Tuesday as the board forwarded the request for ETJ extension on to the county commissioners.
Silvers told the residents that they would have the right to voice their concerns again at a commissioners’ meeting on Aug. 4 at 7 p.m. in the Governmental Center in Wentworth. If the commissioners pass the ETJ request, the matter returns to the Madison Board of Aldermen for final approval at their next meeting on Aug. 14 at 7 p.m.
Silvers said residents were welcome to attend both the board’s Aug. 12 agenda meeting and the Aug. 14 meeting.

News Editor Steve Lawson can be reached at or at 548-6047.