Agenda - 11-23-2009 - C2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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25 Attachment Four Synopsis of Major Transportation Corridor (MTC) Overlay District review and adoption: BACKGROUND: • Originally presented during a joint PUBLIC HEARING on January 23, 1984 (please see attached minutes and agenda face sheet for the public hearing). • At their November 15, 1983 regular meeting, Board members requested that staff prepare an overlay district for the I -40 corridor providing for sign limitations, landscaping requirements, and setbacks by the January 23, 1984 public hearing. Apparently similar overlay districts had been established in Durham County, the City of Durham, and were being reviewed in Wake County at the time of the request. INTENT: • As indicated by staff during the public hearing, the overall intent and purpose of the MTC was to: `... protect the attractiveness and orderly development of land and enhance those natural and environmental features which constitute important physical, aesthetic, recreational, and economic assets along major transportation corridors through the provision of a set of development standards and regulations far application to public and private development of lane adjacent to the corridors' • Staff indicated that major transportation corridors served as both: `movers of traffic and as entranceways to the County from outside areas'. The rationale for establishing the district was that these corridors establish an indicator of the quality of life in the County as well as the efficiency and safety of traffic movement through the area • The MTC was also seen as a potential marketing tool to attract and accommodate different types of development that: `often depends on the capacity of the thoroughfare system and the character and quality of development along the major corridors' • Ancillary benefits associated with the adoption of the proposed overlay district included: noise reduction, the preservation of existing aesthetic quality of the County, and the protection of existing natural and environmental features. ISSUES: • In reviewing the minutes one (1) of the many concerns expressed for establishing the MTC was over the possible location and expansion of major interstates through the County (i.e. Interstate 40). Staff did not want to see the `mass clearing' of interstate corridors and believed that the County ought to take some measure to protect existing, mature, forest along proposed transportation routes.