JOHNSTON COUNTY — The debate over Johnston County’s proposed Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) intensified Tuesday night as hundreds of residents, farmers, small-business owners and landowners filled The Barn at Broadslab in Benson for a community meeting focused on the controversial land-use rewrite.
The Feb. 24 gathering was organized by concerned citizens and was not sponsored by the county. County officials, however, were in attendance.
The meeting came just over a month after a standing-room-only public hearing prompted county commissioners to delay adoption of the 619-page proposal. Johnston County planning officials and commissioners have spent nearly three years drafting the ordinance, which would replace the county’s existing zoning and subdivision rules with a more detailed regulatory framework…