NC town takes steps to ensure rebuilding after Helene does not include truck parking

A town in North Carolina is taking steps to ensure that truck parking will not be a part of the town’s rebuilding post Hurricane Helene. 

Canton, North Carolina, 20 miles outside of Asheville, is still working to recover from the devastating Hurricane Helene last September. As lots are finally cleared and vacated, Canton’s Planning Director says that the town is working to keep trucking companies and parking lots from setting up shop in the newly available locations. 

“I think the primary concern for lots of folks is not just appearance, but also the fact that you’re taking up potentially developable land to be developed as commercial retail and perhaps most importantly, housing stock,” Canton Planning Director Byron Hickox said at a recent meeting, reported The Mountaineer.

In the past, Canton’s zoning has allowed for trucking terminals and their related businesses to operate on any site zoned for business or industrial use, resulting in a collection of lots used mostly for truck parking by nearby companies. Now, the city has changed their ordinances to limit trucking companies and related businesses to operate only on lots zoned as “heavy industrial.” This change will severely limit options for trucking companies within the city of Canton. 

Trucking trucking terminals will be grandfathered in, but no new lots will be permitted as the town works to recover and rebuild. 

“With some properties likely to be vacated due to damage from the flood, they didn’t want dozens of recently vacated properties to become occupied by trucking,” Hickox said. “[But] you can’t retroactively say something is not a permitted district.”