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Mega-resort meets local opposition |
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Thursday, 19 January 2006 |
by JULIA MERCHANT
News Reporter
A group calling themselves Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains is waging a protest against the proposed development of a 6,000-acre resort with which Appalachian State University officials have announced future collaboration.
Ginn Clubs and Resorts is scheduled to open the resort in 2009 on land near the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Jaime and Davey McGuinn, members of the group who visited the planned
site, said Ginn has already started construction of 20-30 miles of
roads on their land, located close to the Aho entrance on the Parkway.
The McGuinns are brothers who live near the Ginn site.
Jaime McGuinn is a graduate of Appalachian.
The group hopes to get the company to donate the land to a local conservancy rather than developing it.
“The facts simply do not support a compromise,” Jasmine Shoshanna, a
local schoolteacher and group coordinator, said at a Jan. 12 meeting.
The group cites issues of steep slope development, water, mountaintop
removal, wildlife conservation and preservation of local culture as
some of the reasons they do not think the resort should be built.
“I would never forgive myself if I didn’t speak out about what this
development would do to our community and the people downstream from
us,” Shoshanna said.
Upon completion, the resort will feature approximately 1,500
single-family homes, 1,000 condominium units and/or hotel rooms, two
18-hole golf courses, a water park, horse and biking trails, an
observatory, vineyards and 50 miles of roads.
“I got involved because it is in my backyard, and I knew it was time to fight it,” Jamie McGuinn said.
“I felt like a lot of people didn’t really know [about this], and they
were trying to keep it quiet,” Beth Huntzinger, another Appalachian
graduate and an activist in the group, said.
The group feels plans of the resort have received little coverage in the media.
Both McGuinn and Huntzinger said they were not surprised by the lack of media coverage the resort has received.
“I think people want to do what they want to do and don’t want to have negative attention,” Huntzinger said.
Administrators from Appalachian have been in talks with officials from
Ginn about possible collaboration with the university in areas of
hospitality and recreation management, as well as with the new wine
program.
Ginn officials also took Chancellor Kenneth E. Peacock, Dr. Stan R.
Aeschleman and other high level administrators on a guided helicopter
tour of the property.
Not all Appalachian administration and faculty are in support of Ginn’s proposed resort, however.
Chuck Smith, director of sustainable development, said while he could
not necessarily speak for the department as a whole, “sustainable
development is very concerned about land use issues in the region,
particularly ones of this magnitude.”
“I think the mega-developments up here and the problems they bring to this region are just getting out of hand,” Smith said.
In the subject of collaboration between Ginn and university
departments, Smith said the sustainable development department is
generally not interested in research for something that could possibly
not benefit the community.
Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains plans to spend the next few months
building a base of support, doing interviews and media campaigns, and
trying to find a lawyer to help them.
Their next meeting is Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. in the Watauga County Library.
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