By JIM GENARO

BLACK MOUNTAIN — What began as an attempt to accommodate a large local employer’s desire to expand its warehouse led to a series of controversial zoning changes and heated debate by the Black Mountain Board of Aldermen last Monday night.

After voting unanimously to increase the maximum allowable building height in parts of the town zoned I-1, or light industrial, from 35 feet to 55 feet, the board then approved two changes to the zoning designations of properties in the I-1 district.

The measures were prompted by a request from Ingles Markets, one of Black Mountain’s largest employers.

The company had asked the town to increase the maximum allowable building height in order to clear the way for it to expand its warehouse, which is zoned I-1.

Speaking in favor of the height increase, Planning Board Chair Harry Hamil noted that much of the Ingles building already exceeds the 35-foot limit, having been erected prior to the passage of the zoning rules.

“This is not permitting something that is vastly different from what we have,” Hamil told the board.
However, debate became heated as the aldermen then voted to change the designations of two tracts of nearby land that were zoned I-1.

The first parcel, which includes an area south of U.S. 70 and east of Blue Ridge Broadcasting, was rezoned as O-1 or Office Institutional, a much more restrictive designation. The measure was passed 4-1, with Alderman Joan Brown dissenting.

The second parcel, which stretches north of U.S. 70, was rezoned to I-2 or Heavy Industrial zoning. That measure was passed 3-2 with Brown and Rosalie Phillips voting against it. However, because it had been introduced that evening, a second vote will be held about it at the aldermen’s meeting next month.

The two rezoning measures were intended to keep the whole district from being allowed the higher height limit. However, the first one was passed despite strong objections — and a formal protest petition — from two of the major landowners in the area being considered.

Sam Reeves, an attorney for Montreat College and the Black Mountain Center for Research and Technology LLC said that his clients cumulatively own 60 percent of the land under consideration and therefore were filing a formal protest petition as allowed by law. This petition meant that any vote on the change required a 75 percent “supermajority,” not the simple majority