Steve Dozier, long-time chair, steps away from Henderson County planning board

Steve Dozier was appointed to the Henderson County Planning Board in December of 2008. Now, he’s stepping down as chair and away from the planning board all together.

Dozier said he has always felt the need to be “heavily involved” in his community and, along with various other boards, he felt being on the planning board was a good way to do that.

“I was selling a fair bit of land and was seeing issues with land use,” Dozier said. “I just thought that I could provide some insight there with my real estate background.”

Dozier has been in the real estate business for nearly 23 years and is currently an agent with Allen Tate/Beverly-Hanks.

He has spent the past 15 years on the planning board and the past 10 as its chair. In addition to his work on the planning board, Dozier also serves on the Henderson County zoning board of adjustment, the Henderson County economic partnership board, the Henderson County Community Foundation board of directors and more.

Dozier said over the past several years, the planning board has been “such a good” one with representatives from fire and safety, land planning, commercial construction and real estate realms.

“We didn’t always agree on everything,” Dozier said. “We just had a good board that understands what the county’s needs are.”

The planning board provides recommendations to county commissioners and while commissioners do not always take the recommendations of the planning board, Dozier said he understands the role of the board.

Looking back at his time on the planning board, Dozier said a situation that stands out to him was when a developer was looking to build 500 homes in the area. The planning board was split with four board members voting in favor of the development and another four voting against it.

Dozier said he was the deciding vote and he voted not to approve the development.

“That developer actually came back to me a couple of years later to thank me for not approving because he would have gone belly-up,” Dozier said. “The recession was happening, and he would have started building then and nothing was selling during that time.”

Dozier said he worked to control growth in Henderson County as much as possible. He said Henderson County and Buncombe County have been discovered and the planning boards in the area need to make adjustments.

He said he enjoyed his time on the Henderson County planning board and looks forward to continuing to serve the county in any way he can.

“It truly was an honor to serve the county," Dozier said, "and I will do that until the day I go on to a better life."

More: Find out the top 5 most expensive homes on the market today in Henderson County

Karrigan Monk is the reporter for Black Mountain News and Hendersonville Times-News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kmonk@blackmountainnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Steve Dozier steps away from Henderson County planning board