Haywood Schools will buy land adjacent to Tuscola
Haywood County Schools will soon own a 10-acre parcel adjacent to Tuscola High School. Haywood GIS photo
It took a while, but after a surprise addition to the Haywood Board of County Commissioners’ agenda, no small amount of debate and an unusual procedural move, Haywood County Schools will move forward with a land acquisition it’s been eyeing for more than a year.
Last spring, when Dr. Bill Nolte was serving as interim superintendent, it came to the school board’s attention that 10.5 acres owned by Champion Credit Union directly adjacent to Tuscola High School was available for purchase.
“As you know, the availability of expansion for both of our large high schools is pretty limited in terms of space around them, and we would like to use both of those campuses for some time into the future,” Nolte told commissioners Dec. 17. “So I was directed by our board to begin having conversations with Champion Credit Union about the seriousness of that property and what the board might pay for it.”
On Sept. 17, the Haywood County Schools board voted to purchase the property pending due diligence; Nolte said he’d planned to ask commissioners for the release of the funds last week by submitting the item to the Dec. 17 agenda, but Winter Storm Diego’s heavy snowfall made that impossible.
“Our primary reason for wanting the property is that [Tuscola] is a landlocked high school that we need to use for a long time,” said Nolte. “We know that there are condominiums adjacent to the property and there are homes going in above the property and there have been other inquiries about the use of the property that we are requesting to purchase.”
Nolte was before commissioners with Dr. Trevor Putnam to ask commissioners to release $500,000 in Article 40 and 42 state capital funds that are sent to commissioners to be held and released when deemed appropriate — only for capital projects. That account has about $800,000 in it right now.
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As to what will be done with the parcel — adjacent to and just south of Tuscola’s campus, on the right-hand side of Tuscola School Road as one drives in — it’s just as much about what the school board wants to see as what it doesn’t want to see.
“There are no immediate plans for the school district to do anything with that property,” Nolte said. “All kinds of ideas have been discussed, some of that’s been published in the local newspapers, but the primary purpose is to secure property that we believe we will need later … and hopefully to prevent businesses that might not be conducive to lots of high school students driving up and down that road every day.”
Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick had to make a motion to suspend the rules to consider the matter, since it wasn’t on the agenda. He then offered up a motion to allow the school board to move forward on the purchase.
“It’s a pretty large chunk of money to be voting on, on such short notice,” said Commissioner Brandon Rogers.
Nolte said research indicated that Mission Hospital “paid about $62,000 an acre for property that’s very near this property. We would be spending less than $50,000.”
And although Nolte said there were no immediate plans for the parcel’s utilization, the school system does have a list of long-term needs that will eventually need to be addressed, among them the mélange of administrative office locations.
“Our biggest concern is that we have very old administrative facilities scattered all over the county,” including at the Historic Haywood County Hospital, a building in Hazelwood and another adjacent to the Folkmoot Friendship Center.
“I would think a half-million dollars is going to touch the consolidation of that,” Nolte told the board. “Our biggest need is administration and that’s something I hope our board and the commission can sit down and talk about as we move into the new year.”
That will become especially relevant if and when the fate of the hospital is known (see Hospital, page 5).
“Basically this is their money,” said Commissioner Kirk Kirkpatrick. “It’s not county money, it’s their money, and they voted by more than a majority to approve this, twice. Generally, I have always adhered to if another board has control of something – especially if they have an elected board — to try to do what that board wants to do.”
Commissioners voted unanimously to release the funds to HCS so it can execute the contract.
