The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved 142 buyouts in Buncombe County on Friday, bringing the total number of approved properties up to 189 in the county.
The agency allocated a total of $59 million, which will also support the acquisition of 11 properties in Haywood County, nine properties in Mitchell County and several in Madison County.
The buyouts — which some people have waited on for more than a year — are part of the agency’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, a decades-old initiative that allows some homeowners to sell their houses to the local government. If the sale goes through, that land is then deeded for parks, greenways and other municipal projects…