I am a resident of Forsyth County, and I am asking our Board of Commissioners to support Project Iron Spur, rezoning Petition F-1669 in Rural Hall, when it comes before them around July 30.

Planning staff recommended denial, but only because the project does not match an older area land use plan. That is a technical point, not a finding that the project is wrong, and the Commissioners are not bound by it.

The real choice matters here. This land is zoned residential today. If the rezoning is denied, the likely outcome is not open fields. It is a subdivision of roughly 345 houses, with hundreds of new households drawing on our schools, roads, and emergency services, and none of the enforceable protections this project carries. Study after study shows that kind of residential growth costs a county more in services than it pays in taxes. Project Iron Spur would do the opposite and add millions a year to the tax base that helps fund our schools and services.

The applicant has worked with neighbors and agreed to enforceable conditions on noise, lighting, and buffers, reduced the number of buildings, and moved the substation away from homes. The owners are a local family who can no longer sustain farming the land, and they deserve to sell it for its best use.

Please join me in asking the Commissioners to approve Petition F-1669, or at the very least to keep working with the applicant toward a plan they can approve, rather than denying it outright.”