Profile: Stephen Phillips hopes to follow family tradition
Editor’s Note: The following is part five of a series of profiles of Boone town council candidates.
By Frank Ruggiero
ruggiero@wataugademocrat.com

It’s safe to say that Stephen Phillips has planned a course of action.

A Boone planning commissioner, Phillips hopes to expand his own boundaries by vying for one of three opening seats on the Boone Town Council.

Phillips’ family has a history in local politics, with his grandfather, the late Gordon Winkler, having served as mayor of Boone in the 1940s, ’50s and ’70s for a total of 24 years. Though the mayor’s office is not Phillips’ target, he hopes to emulate his grandfather by making a difference in the community.

One such difference, he said, would be the completion of the town’s greenway trail. Ideally, Phillips would like to see it continue through the Leola Street Community Garden and along Meadowview Drive to Boondocks Street to eventually connect to the Boone Mall.

A greenway system that spanned the entire town would serve as ample motivation for residents to begin walking where they wish to go, cutting down somewhat on traffic congestion and encouraging healthier lifestyles.

To further traffic improvement, Phillips said simple solutions can make a big difference, such as additional turn lanes and a more effective calibration of traffic lights. While much of this responsibility lies with the N.C. Department of Transportation, Phillips said he’d meet with officials so frequently, “They might begin to think I work there.”

Blame for traffic congestion is often shifted to Appalachian State University, and Phillips said he’d like to see the town and university work together to make Boone more pedestrian-friendly, “and the best way to do that is to try to get student housing as close to campus as possible.”

Phillips studied city planning in college, his degree concentrations in traffic and redevelopment. Accordingly, he would like to see three areas modified – West Howard Street, East Howard Street and the Faculty Street area between McDonald’s and Hardee’s – by offering incentives for landowners and developers to turn the properties into high-density, mixed-use projects, with retail on the ground floor and residential above.

“It’d be based on a model of more what King Street looks like,” Phillips said, noting that, like King Street, parking would be very limited and a satellite parking area on the periphery of town would be necessary. “From a city planning perspective, that’s where you want your students to live, because they can walk to class from there. It’s complicated, and there are a lot of individual landowners’ property rights to deal with, but if done right, people can stand to benefit.”

This is but one method to protect neighborhoods, with Phillips suggesting that if a developer proposes a project near a neighborhood, he or she must meet with neighborhood residents upfront for input and to hear their concerns.

“And then he needs to start designing the project based on those concerns, whether it be traffic, lighting, noise, visibility,” Phillips said. “I’d like the developer to go upfront and host a forum. This would take place in the very first part of the planning process.”

By meeting in advance, matters like buffering and building orientation could be addressed before any permits are issued.

As for affordable housing, Phillips acknowledged that it’s pretty much non-existent in Boone. Many of his friends who work in Boone commute from Ashe County, but Phillips said he’d like to see new neighborhoods created in Boone that could prove affordable.

“I’d like to work with ASU’s sustainable development department to try to help design these neighborhoods,” he said, “so they take in a lot of environmental concerns, such as the view-shed, water retention, erosion control, traffic … just to see if we can come up with some workable solutions.”

Another suggestion, which he admitted could be tricky, is to allow duplex-type housing in single-family neighborhoods, but geared toward young professionals – not students – to offer a cheaper alternative to buying a home.

Phillips realizes that growth cannot occur without an ample supply of water, and though the town’s sources yield steady flows, the town must increase its treatment capacity to meet future demand.

One of the best temporary solutions, Phillips said, is shaving the peaks, where a storage tank is added to the system. On lower usage days, water drawn from the source is treated and stored in the new tank. During high usage days, if usage reaches the maximum treating capacity, the additional tank is brought on-line.

Also regarding water, Phillips suggested that Boone Public Utilities move faster on issuing bills. As it is, residents receive bills that run two to four weeks behind the meter reading dates, and Phillips said it should be reduced to a one or two week spread; that way, residents and businesses could detect more quickly if their residence or business has a costly leak.

As a planning commissioner, Phillips worked on revising the Boone Comprehensive Plan. Now, he’d like to see the Unified Development Ordinance undergo a similar revision to make it less cumbersome and more user-friendly.

After graduating from college in 1993, Phillips worked an internship in Trier, Germany, where he helped design that municipality’s UDO. The Trier document included user-friendly descriptions with illustrations to clearly convey the points of the regulations.

Also while in Germany, Phillips came to appreciate Trier’s recycling program. Ideally, Phillips said he’d like to see a coordinated effort between the town and university, featuring separate color-coordinated recycling bins with pictures on the front. Yellow would signify paper, green would be glass and so on.

“It’d be the same on campus, in town or in apartment buildings, so you don’t get mixed messages,” he said. “And I’d put three or four recycling centers in town to make it real convenient for people.”

When it comes to a starting point for such an initiative, Phillips said zero waste is a good place to begin. “If the community wants zero waste, then the town leaders need to come up with ways to make it easier to do so and to recycle,” he said. “If you make it easy for people, they’ll do it, but if they’re getting mixed messages and the centers are only open on select days, that’s not going to work.”

Regarding mixed messages, Phillips feels that regulations on steep slope development and view-shed protection passed last October have resulted in just that. While he believes regulations are necessary to prevent high-impact, high-density developments on steep, visible slopes, Phillips said some areas were wrongfully included in the view-shed overlay map, which regulates development and density in affected areas.

“Other areas that are visible, they are in the view-shed and we need regulations to make sure they’re not destroyed or poorly developed,” he said. “But there were areas included in the view-shed map that were not visible … and they should be taken out.”

As far as steep slope development is concerned, Phillips said the regulations seem unclear and difficult to understand. He suggested they be revised for clarity and understanding, using illustrations and clear-cut examples so they’re easy to follow.

When the vote was presented last October, Phillips voted against the steep slope and view-shed regulations.
Phillips was endorsed by the political action committee, Citizens for Change, and attended a barbecue hosted by area business owners John and Lennis Greene on the PAC’s behalf. There, Phillips spoke with PAC members and other community members who shared similar concerns.

“They felt the approval process was too cumbersome, too expensive and too unpredictable,” he said. “It was interesting to talk to these people and hear their frustrations. I learned more about ‘Citizens for Change’ and more about their objectives.”

To contact Stephen Phillips, call (828) 264-1845 or visit www.phillipsforcouncil.com on the Web.