County Government Efforts Balance Economic Growth and Rural Preservation
Dec 07, 2024 10:42AM ● By Randee Brown
County and municipal governments work closely together to boost economic development for the region, according to Polk County Planning and Economic Development Director Cathy Ruth.
The approximately 275 county employees serve in law enforcement and emergency medical service as well as work to protect the character of the county while supporting businesses in the area.
“It’s important to our community to keep it rural,” Ruth said. “Our vision statement reflects the desire to protect our rural atmosphere and natural beauty. We support very small and home-based businesses, but we want the bigger businesses to remain where the infrastructure is.”
As a result of a recent shift toward a tourism-based economy, a tourism board now works closely with the economic development board. The tourism board also coordinates with agricultural economic development to promote events like farm tours and vineyard activities that help keep farms open longer, which supports the county’s economy. Other focuses include supporting a winter farmers market, helping farmers across the county get their product directly to customers.
“These markets also act as a small business incubator,” Ruth said. “It’s a great place for home-based businesses to come and sell their products in a place that won’t cost them an arm and a leg to set up.”
Similar to the state’s westernmost counties, there is a need to expand broadband infrastructure to support both residents and home-based businesses in rural areas. County Manager Marche Pittman said a combination of recent grants has brought $21 million in broadband infrastructure to Polk County. Once projects funded by those grants are complete, the majority of the county’s rural areas will have access.
“It helps tourism, and it helps businesses,” Ruth said. “Even from a safety perspective, it helps our residents. It’s also creating jobs — the contractors working on the installation live here in the county. The long term aspect will provide more access to schools, telemedicine, and access to government. It will be really exciting to see all of our citizens connected and what the future will bring with these capabilities.”
While broadband will connect residents and encourage growth in rural areas, Polk County is unique to other WNC county governments in their work to maintain its rural nature. County subdivision regulations require a five-acre minimum for each parcel, while incorporated areas allow for much smaller parcels, steering most development to towns.
The goal of maintaining the county’s rural nature has some trade-offs, according to Pittman. The county is working on a housing study to determine how to accommodate the increasing population, including retirees relocating to the area. Affordability is challenging across the region as a whole, and the five-acre minimum prevents the construction of developments with reasonably-priced homes. Nonprofits partner with the county to work on housing-assistance and sweat-equity programs, though challenges continue to arise.
“The trade off is that housing costs are going to continue to be higher,” Pittman said. “People can’t afford the additional land required. We haven’t been able to convince the residents that complain about the fact that their kids have nowhere to move to that you can’t have both the rural nature and the affordability. We’re continuing to work to address these challenges as best we can.”
County government staff are also looking to the future to prepare for additional challenges as an aging workforce transitions into retirement. Raising county staff salaries by 40% over the last five years, setting up succession planning, and marketing the county’s amenities to attract new workforce members to the area are some of the ways the government seeks to mitigate the workforce shortage. They are also promoting public service jobs as an opportunity to give back to the community as well as marketing opportunities to individuals outside of the county.
“When the economy has been so good for so long, people tend not to look at the public sector for jobs,” Pittman said. “When you have an economic downturn, people tend to start looking public because that’s a consistent paycheck. We haven’t had these conditions for a long time, and promoting these jobs in this way, I think will drive a lot of people back to this kind of work.”
“We also have a great hospital, great school systems, and the people here are wonderful,” Ruth said. “There’s so much that’s enticing here, it doesn’t take much for people to fall in love with our area. We hope that continues to boost the great nature of our county.”