Agenda - 04-06-2010 - 7c - Laserfiche WebLink

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Robert Davis: No, no dwelling and chat other tract are undeveloped. You do have numerous roads that are crossing 100-year floods. You 21) have Damascus Church that crosses the same creek at a wider point. Pete Hallenbeck: Three comments that I'd like to make, first of all if we could look at plan number 3 which the only option on the desk, speaking both to staff and residents around Booth Road. Another hat I wear is I am the assistant chief to the Efland Fire Department. I didn't see anything compelling here for connecting in terms of improving response times. That is my personal observation, I don't want to representation that as being the position of the fire department. If I were living in that subdivision with this plan, 1 would want a connection that could be used in an emergency. When this came up, people said'we've never had a problem"it's ok'. What you have never seen is the storm that comes through, a tree falls on the road, your house is struck by lightning and is burning down and no one can get to it, or the responding apparatus gets in trouble, or there is an accident and you can't get emergency equipment in so I would strongly suggest, if this plan is done, to find some way to arrange those lots and have that area clear and designated for emergency access. There's a lot to be said for being able to get in somewhere when a road is blocked. Right now, when you didn't want the road, everything made sense but now you are in the situation where you don't have that road but I would strongly suggest a plan that leaves that access there. I would strongly suggest keeping that area clean and I'd even put down some gravel so in bad weather something could get through. Someday when something bad happens on that road the emergency vehicle can get to you. My second comment and question is to staff, on page 26 of the packet under Option 3 conditions, item 9 suggests the connection road be turned over the North Carolina Department of Transportation. I took at that and the letter on page 55 that was submitted where the developers keep saying this will be a private paved road. It seems that the suggestion 9 is very much against the intentions as put forth by the developers and I could not vote for Option 3 if the developers came in and acquired land saying it would be a private paved road and the plan endorses making that as something the NCDOT can take over. Robert Davis: They have to petition NCDOT to take it over. They did once and DOT did not because they required improvements. They did improvements and DOT agreed to take it over with a petition but the residents have not filed that petition. The staff encouraged public maintenance. We did not recommend Option 3 originally, we recommended Option 2, and however, if you wanted to vote for this one, we recommended making the connection and when the road met the condition for public maintenance, this portion be placed on public maintenance. Pete Hallenbeck: What about the section that's going up? Robert Davis: All of this. You have a gap on Booth Road betvreen Chatham County and here that would be a public road privately maintained. We would recommend that it all goon. We're recommending anytime that a road meet public maintenance requirements for it to be petitioned to be taken over. Pete Hallenbeck: It is clear from this letter that this whole development is being proposed as a private drive and I would like to see a plan to honor that. 1'll make my third comment anch it takes that theme a step further and I'll admit to being a little bit vague as to the power of the Planning Board in this regard, it seems that this letter dated September 19, 2006 promises this road will be a paved private road tends to omit the fact there will be a subdivision there and probably with the exception of the second paragraphs, it reads tikes someone is trying to buy access to a piece of property they have to put in a house. The statement provided on page 49 by the Lewis' seems to indicate continued wmmunications, there were lots of opportunities for the developer to indicate there was a plan to turn this into a 12 lot development and that did not happen. The contract of purchase still states that the road can be public or private so you don't know if that is an omission by the lawyer or something that was not caught by the seller but that letter and that contract are in conflict and 1 would like to see that resolved. I understand the Lewis' position that the promise was broken and I would really like to see that resolved between the parties. My last comment is that I am also worried about the environment and this whole plan has a number of things about it that are not quite right. Brian Crawford: As a practical matter, this contract and the correspondence from the Lewis' is really a matter between the Lewis' and the developers and I don't chink we can consider it in this deliberation. There were misunderstandings in that wntract and I can see loads of potential problems between the Lewis' and the developer. The developer has come with a proposal and we have to react to that proposal. I understand what the Lewis' are saying but they have to go back to the developer. The other issue is, and I want to ask staff to consider this, it is my understanding that when you have a properly such as this that seems to be landlocked with the exception of this one long easement of road, that we have to consider for the developer, notwithstanding the problems of how he obtained that easement, we have to consider for the developer a way to get back to that main road. Although it is over this easement, I don't know if we can just say that because it is going to damage this easement, particular when there is evidence in the County that we have gone over easements like this before, I don't know if we can use the conservation easement as an issue to stop this plan because he has to get to a main road. Larry Wright: Why not? I disagree with you. We are members of the community and we represent the Lewis' as much as we represent the developer, I would hope. This is why we are the Planning Board. I feel that yes, we can. We can act on behalf of the Lewis' here. Brian Crawford: That is probably an issue we will have to refer to the county attorney. Larry Wright: We are stewards of the environment. I do not think that just because it is a developmental issue and a developer has come here that we need to rubber stamp that there are other things in the County.