Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
18 <br />October 12, 2009 Regular Meeting <br />Approved: November 9, 2009 <br />Page 14 of 39 <br />same regulations voting on applications and requests for permits was at issue. He said he would <br />need to take a closer look to see if that was acceptable as a legal matter, and if there was a legal <br />issue with it then it was more a policy question, in that did they want people who were not <br />subject to the regulations to be voting members on the boards that applied those rules. <br />8:14:50 PM Commissioner Hallman said he had thought they were talking about the area in <br />blue, and now that he understood they are talking about the orange area, he withdrew his <br />statements and agreed with Commissioner Gering. <br />Commissioner Lloyd asked if the County provided courtesy review for Chapel Hill and <br />Carrboro. Mr. Benedict responded yes, noting it was a part of the process that proposals were <br />sent to the County to confirm that the proposal was consistent with the Land Use Plan and it was <br />okay to proceed. <br />Ms. Hauth said that was for proposals within the joint planning area, not within Chapel Hill <br />proper. Mr. Benedict said that was correct. He said the white area on the map would be a <br />coordinated planning area where the County would administer a land use plan that was agreed to <br />by the Town, and if that was a lower density then the County would continue to implement that <br />lower density so that sprawl did not occur in the area and overburden traffic. <br />8:16:?8 PM Mr. Peterson said Mr. Benedict had said that once a development in the orange <br />area was completed then the Town could annex it. He asked if by complete did that mean that all <br />CO's had been issued. Mr. Benedict said it could be by section if it was amulti-phase project, or <br />you could annex it once all phases were completed. He said the process would require voluntary <br />petitions be filed with the application. Mr. Peterson said then the areas would have to request <br />voluntary annexation but they would not have to be annexed. Mr. Benedict said that would be <br />the Town's choice. Mr. Peterson asked would the people have to request voluntary annexation <br />or would they have the choice to ask. Mr. Benedict said the developer would be required to file <br />the petition for voluntary annexation. Mr. Peterson said with the annexation laws being in flux, <br />he did not know that they could craft something that would work around that. He said he was <br />concerned that annexation laws would change and they would trip themselves up and not have <br />the ability to annex the most valuable land in the State and in an area where they would not be <br />able to address affordability issues. Mr. Peterson observed that if you looked at the orange area <br />below I-40, if the hospital was approved that would spur development and that was one of the <br />hopes of the Waterstone development. He said if you looked at where there might be semi-large <br />tracts of land that the Town could potentially approve in the future there really was not much of <br />anything. <br />Mr. Peterson said he may be wrong, but it was his sense that the Town would be abdicating a <br />great deal of their authority to potentially annex that area and giving up a lot of their control by <br />not annexing something until it was completely built out in five, ten or even twenty years. He <br />said at that point the laws may be different and you would have people paying double water <br />rates. Mr. Peterson said it would get confusing because you would have the Sheriffls <br />Department providing protection, and someone else providing garbage services, and then there <br />was a transition when the Town took it over, so it seemed to him to be potentially messy. <br />14 <br />