By Elena Marsh
Staff Writer
A new gymnastics training facility is set to go up in West End following Moore County Commissioners’ approval.
The facility is to be housed in one of the warehouses located at 120 Knox Lane, across from West End Fire and Rescue, with typical class sizes of six to eight students of various skill levels. The amendment does not allow for competitions in the space.
There are currently over 30 parcels of land in Moore County zoned for industrial use. The majority of these parcels are clusters, all zoned industrial with multiple buildings within the parcel. Most are located in western and northern Moore County, within rural agricultural zoned areas. The remaining third of these industrial zoned parcels are scattered throughout the county.
With Thursday’s approval, the county’s Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO, now allows indoor recreation as a permitted use in the industrial zoning district. As well, gymnastics has been added to the definition of indoor recreations. Meaning, indoor recreational activities like gymnastics are now permitted in the industrial zones areas of the county.
Gymnastics coach Anita Kelso had requested an amendment that would allow indoor recreation to be permitted in all industrial zoning districts. The board voted unanimously in favor of this change.
Kelso chose to apply for a UDO text amendment in the county as opposed to rezoning a piece of property. The warehouse located on Knox Lane was once a part of the Stanly Furniture facility and the lot Kelso selected is already non-conforming for industrial uses and would need to be renovated anyway.
Warehouses are common locations for gymnastics training due to higher ceilings and open floor plan, allowing for more space to cross-train on a multitude of gymnastics equipment.
In other action during Thursday’s meeting, the county commissioners:
* Approved a letter requesting funding support from the county’s elected state representatives for the mandated update of the Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders or, VIPER.
VIPER is a radio system owned by the NC Highway Patrol. All counties are being required to upgrade their radios by July of 2025.
“Moore County finds itself under another unfunded mandate,” reads the letter presented by Bryan Phillips, the county’s Public Safety Director. “This mandate is regarding radio equipment for emergency responders which includes fire departments, EMS and other public safety departments. The estimated cost for the County is between $3.2 to almost $3.8 million dollars.”
The requirement is for the county to move all radios currently active on the VIPER system from a Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) technology to a Time Division Multiple Access or TDMA operation.
The new standard allows a number of users to access a single radio frequency channel without interference by allocating unique time slots to each user within each channel.
* Approved a $40,000 allocation to Moore County Schools for reimbursing kindergarten through third grade teachers for purchasing school supplies this year. Higher-than-expected sales tax collections allowed for the new expense. The county had budgeted for $26.5 million in sales tax receipts for the fiscal year that concluded June 30. But by that mark, the total was $29.9 million.
The $40,000 would be distributed based on the number of kindergarten through third grade students in the system as well as students from Moore County that attend charter schools.
“We would be distributing it based on the number of students,” said Superintendent Tim Loacklair. “Then that would be compiled for that teacher based on the number of students they have in their classroom.”
Contact Elena Marsh at (910) 694-2484 or elena@thepilot.com.
