Our Opinion: Growth train has left station

It’s safe to say some folks who live in rural Johnston don’t want new neighbors. And we get that; those folks live in rural Johnston exactly because they prefer not to have neighbors living on top of them.

But opponents to new housing seldom state their opposition so directly. Instead, they dance around the topic, bemoaning, for example, the loss of farmland to new housing, or at least the loss of the farmland surrounding their home. Which is to say we’ve never seen anyone who lives in the Cleveland community attend a county Planning Board meeting to oppose a subdivision in Corinth-Holders.

But at least those opponents are hinting at the heart of the matter, which is their desire to live without many neighbors. Less sympathetic are people who don’t acknowledge their self-interest, choosing instead to voice other reasons why the Johnston County Planning Board should say no to a subdivision in their neck of the woods.

Traffic, drainage and septic systems are common foils, though surely they know safeguards are in place to address those legitimate concerns. The N.C. Department of Transportation, for example, will require turn lanes into subdivisions and other road improvements if the traffic count merits. By law, meanwhile, engineers must design subdivisions so that they maintain existing drainage patterns. And Johnston County won’t issue a septic permit for a lot that doesn’t perk.

Other objections are simply the pot calling the kettle black. We once heard a homeowner outside Clayton warn that a new subdivision would destroy or displace wildlife in the area. We suppose then that he shed a tear for the wildlife lost or displaced when he cleared the land for his home.

But beyond all this, while we might sympathize with people who want their rural neighborhoods to remain rural, it’s not our place to tell our neighbors they can’t build homes on land zoned for homes. Conversely, and thankfully, those new neighbors can’t ask a farmer to stop farming just because they dislike the smell of cows or pigs or because they have a personal objection to, say, tobacco.

It’s important to note too that subdivision lots in rural Johnston County must be at least 30,000 square feet, or about seven-tenths of an acre. That might not be a homestead exactly, but it’s not the postage stamps they’re building on in some Johnston County towns.

Part of us wishes Johnston County could remain rural, although we sure do appreciate the new grocery stores and restaurants those new rooftops are bringing with them. But no matter how much we might wish otherwise, the growth train has left the station and is making its way east.

There’s not much we can do about that and, frankly, not much we should, unless we’re willing to let our neighbors tell us what we can do with our land.

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