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155 <br /> 410 sensitive site design. Such a program would meet both the goals of <br /> the Joint Planning Land Use Plan and the Committee. In hearing the <br /> concerns of the rural buffer residents (including those on the <br /> Committee) the task force decided that a fifth unstated goal of the <br /> study should include finding a way to achieve the aforementioned goals <br /> while at the same time providing flexibility for rural residents who <br /> have no desire to carve their entire tract into two-acre building <br /> lots. The allowance of current permitted uses, the provision of up to <br /> 2 1-acre lots to keep "family-type" developments from becoming large- <br /> scale ones, and incentives for large-lots are ways that flexibility is <br /> provided in this package. <br /> THE FIVE DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS <br /> In coming up with development options for the rural buffer, the <br /> Committee felt strongly that each option (with one exception) should <br /> be permitted by right, since all achieve the goals of the rural buffer <br /> in one manner or another. All of the options use voluntary <br /> conservation encouraged through open space set-asides and conservation <br /> easements in large lots. All allow slightly different overall <br /> densities depending on open space and resource protection. Even the <br /> most dense of the options the Rural Village has an overall low <br /> density. The options utilize a sliding scale that offers slight <br /> density bonuses in exchange for the provision of permanent open space. <br /> 410 OPTION A is basically the current standard of two acre lot <br /> development. It would allow residential development averaging 1.84 <br /> acres per lot. This option would utilize voluntary conservation <br /> through conservation easements that might protect natural sites within <br /> the private open space of a lot. <br /> OPTION B encourages those who would go above and beyond the <br /> proposed low-density standard to create lots of five acres or more. <br /> Such developments would be limited to a maximum of 200 acres per <br /> development. <br /> OPTION C utilizes open space set-asides in return for slight <br /> density bonuses. Property owners determined to develop their land <br /> might set aside almost 1/2 of their tract in agriculture or natural <br /> forest and develop the other half with lots of almost 1-acre in size. <br /> OPTION D expands upon Option C in that property owners wishing to <br /> develop might set aside 2/3 of their tract in agriculture or natural <br /> open space and develop on the remaining 1/3 using lots of 1/3 acre <br /> average. This development option would require community water and <br /> sewer. <br /> OPTION E is that of the Rural Village. The Rural Village would <br /> be a self-sustaining community that allows residential lots averaging <br /> at 1/4 acre surrounding a commercial core designed to provide services <br /> such as banking, dining and goods to the village residents only. This <br /> "urban-like atmosphere" would be surrounded by vast amounts of open <br /> 1111 space on all sides, such that it would be buffered from roadways and <br /> environmentally-sensitive areas. Four of every five acres in a tract <br /> to be developed as a rural village must be left in open space. Only <br /> one of every five acres could be developed. Public water and sewer <br />