Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
7 <br />Introduction <br />One of the core strategies of Orange County Economic Development is to <br />"...encourage strategically targeted economic development opportunities" <br />(Comprehensive Plan); this document proposes a strategy to achieve this goal. <br />The recent heightened awareness of the need for diversification of our local tax <br />base, combined with current economic and environmental news, have provided, a unique <br />opportunity to develop a focused strategy to address these concerns in Orange County. <br />The overriding objective for the proposed strategy is to satisfy the. general <br />economic development goal as provided in the Orange County 2030 Comprehensive Plan <br />(Comprehensive Plan) (Orange, County 2008), to create "viable and sustainable <br />economic development that contributes to both property and sales tax revenues, and <br />enhances high-quality employment opportunities for County residents". A variety of <br />factors are included in this strategy, including ensuring adequate representation of the <br />entrepreneurs from the small business sector, ensuring that any targeted sector meets the <br />diverse written and unwritten guidelines for doing business in Orange County, <br />identification of an industry with positive growth potential, the ability to utilize a <br />properly trained local workforce, have minimal impact to natural surroundings, and <br />utilize an inventory of available facilities to support the newly targeted industry. <br />Current State of the County <br />Currently, Orange County relies on property taxes for too great a portion of the <br />County's budget. Further reliance on residential property taxes alone will not enable us <br />to build a sustainable economy. As provided in the Comprehensive Plan (Orange <br />County, 2008) Section 3.2 - "[d]emands for services outpaces revenue sources, which are <br />