Agenda - 08-24-2009-C2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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STRATEGIC GROWTH AND RESOURCE CONSERVATION PROGRAM Final (8.7.2009) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Orange County Board of Commissioners; Steering Committee members; and staff in the County, The Louis Berger Group, Inc., and University of North Carolina Charlotte Urban Institute have produced a program that will aid the County in conserving natural resources, directing growth to desirable locations, and helping to fairly compensate land owners that would like to both conserve and realize financial benefits from their property. Based on the success of the Lands Legacy Program, which compensates landowners directly for conservation, the Strategic Growth and Resource Conservation Program (SGRC) would allow property owners and private developers to work together to conserve additional lands with oversight from the County. The Steering Committee that guided this project helped in making key decisions, such as Orange County government will not operate as a "banker" of conservation credits but instead serve in a management role. Furthermore, participation in the SGRC will be voluntary. Rural Preservation. Promote the voluntary placer -rent of conservation easements of i farms, water quality protection lands, historic properties and wildlife habitat to preserve them in their farmed or undeveloped state. Strategic Urbanization. Provide incentives for increased development in the Economic Development zoning districts, and the Efland- Mebane and Hillsborough transition areas and Rural Community Nodes as identified in the Comprehensive Plan and on the Comprehensive Land Use Plan map. Monitor Program Performance. Identify and track appropriate, cost - effective measures of the degree to which the program is meeting the rural preservation and strategic urbanization goals. The SGRC Program was created through three significant phases of work that extended over a period from 2006 to 2009 (page 3 of the Phase IIII report). The first two phases, collectively known as the Feasibility Study, addressed the legal, administrative, design, and economic feasibility of such a program in general. Phase III, Implementation, developed a list of specific action alternatives involving both the Program operation and Administrative actions necessary to support SGRC (page 36). Appendix A outlines the SGRC Plan in a brochure -style format that can be easily reproduced and distributed to interested parties. The SGRC Program relies on the trading of Conservation Points (CPS) that get transferred from an eligible Resource Conservation Area to an eligible Strategic Growth Area. The developer of the latter could then exchange the purchased CPS for density, impervious cover, or other allowances granted through the SGRC Program. The SGRC Steering Committee, operating from analyses conducted of Orange County properties, determined a number of eligibility criteria for Conservation Area properties to ensure fair operation of the SGRC including minimum acreage size (50 acres) and historic, agricultural, or natural resource merit (see Chapter 2.2 for detailed Program Design options). The County's current transition zones and economic development districts are designated as Strategic Growth areas. The next steps after this Plan is adopted would be to implement Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinance Amendments, and consider staffing needs to manage and market the SGRC Program. This report contains additional Administration guidelines (Chapter 2.3) and monitoring strategies (Chapter 3). ORANGE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA