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t 30 <br /> T ► 0,0Atte V1A— Z <br /> • <br /> LAW OFFICES <br /> COLEMAN, GLEDHILL, HARGMVE ST.PEEK <br /> A PROFE S13 AL C ORPO.A77CaN <br /> 129E.TP.YONSTR1 T <br /> P.O.DRAWER 1529 <br /> HILLSBOROUGH.NO _"r1 CAROLDI t 2717c5 <br /> 9:9-732..4196 PROM 151L L' C OF <br /> FAX 919-7n-7°97 <br /> +Fww.c• p-ransom BRIAN M.FERRELL <br /> • <br /> bfriTelk :aliOuw.Wm <br /> January 29,2009 <br /> • <br /> Mr.Michael Harvey,Zoning Enforcement Officer <br /> Orange County Planning Department <br /> P.O.Box 8181 <br /> )!Iillsborough,NC 27278 <br /> RE: Legal Advertisement For February 23,2009 Quarterly Public Hearing <br /> Dear Michae l: <br /> This letter pertains to proposed Item A.4. "Zoning Ordinance Amendment: Conditional Use <br /> District/Conditional Zoning" as contained on the "Notice of Joint Public Hcaring>" for the February 23, <br /> 2009 joint Board of County Comrnissioners/Planning Board public hearing. i understand that the Board <br /> of County Commissioners (the "BOCC') will be asked to approve the legal advertisement for the joint <br /> public hearing on February 3, 2009. For the reasons that follow,we recommend that the Conditional Use <br /> District/Conditional Zoning item not be placed on the February 23,2009 quarterly public hearing agenda <br /> and that you remove the item from the proposed legal advertisement. <br /> We offer unqualified support for the eventual implementation of the conditional zoning tool <br /> within Orange County's planning jurisdiction. We also offer unqualified support for modernizing Article <br /> 7 "Planned Development Districts" of the County's Zoning Ordinance (the "Ordinance") to reflect the • <br /> most up to date components of conditional use district zoning. I recognize that you have spent a great <br /> deal of time and effort.developing well crafted amendments to Article 7 of the Ordinance to accomplish <br /> these two tasks. However, I also recognize that significant additional staff and legal time and effort will <br /> be necessary to review, revise and finalize the proposed amendments before they are presented to the <br /> 13OCC for adoption. <br /> • Therefore, we recommend the focus of our collective efforts on writing and implementing a <br /> modern Unified Development Ordinance ("UDO") instead of spending a substantial amount of time and <br /> effort creating brand new constructs for conditional zoning and conditional use district zoning within the <br /> current, and admittedly outdated, Ordinance. This course of action will not leave the County completely <br /> without the benefit of these two tools. As you are well aware, the Ordinance does contain a regulatory <br /> tool similar to "conditional use district zoning" in Article 7 of the Ordinance which is titled "Planned <br /> 'Development Districts". There is benefit to modernizing Article 7 of the Onxlinance as we discovered <br /> during the review of the Buckhotn Village PD application, We support making minor revisions within <br /> the cunent Article 7 in the short term to address these needed improvements while we focus the majority <br /> of our collective resources on the longer term goal of drafting a IJDO for consideration by the l3QCC. <br />