Minutes 06-01-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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� 1994, this was how the area was presented to the citizens. He said that the difference between these is significant. He said that he does not know a lot about how to protect water quality of the streams. He showed a map of Mt. Willing Road, US 70, and the interstate with the old line. He said that he wants to address the area below the line with Planning because the citizens felt that it belonged within their boundary and they were not allowed to do any planning outside the boundary, which was the definition of the small area plan. He is a landowner within this area and he has been working with ERCD to do a conservation easement over his property and the planning for this came out of nowhere. He said that the two departments were not really working together. He said that this does not really protect the nature preserve. Carolyn Christman said that if the County is looking to restrict land use then the County needs to show a clear, compelling, and urgent need. The County also has to show clear plans and a source of revenue stream for the goals of the property. She said that she does not see this. She said that this is not the right time for this proposal, but it is kind of a wish list. She said that it is not fair to ask landowners to sacrifice their land for conservation purposes at this point. She asked that the County Commissioners reject the proposal at this time and come back to it later. Dolly Hunter said that she does not own any of this property, but she asked the County Commissioners to reject this rezoning of the Upper Eno Critical Area because it is regressive planning. She said that this corridor is the County's most valuable area for economic development because it is the intersection of I-85 and I-40. She said that the County desperately needs economic development and instead of restricting this area, it should be designed for economic development. She said that there is no urgency to do this now. She said that what should be done first is to sit down with the City of Mebane and make a plan to serve this corridor with water and sewer for development. Ben Lloyd said that he has concerns about this area. He said that the critical areas called for in this ordinance are one half mile from the water source or the ridge line. This has put between 18-19,000 acres of Orange County in a Water Quality Critical Area. He said that some consideration needs to be given to the way the water flows. He has joint land on the west side of Duke Forest, which has been left in the critical area. He thinks that consideration needs to be given to the length of flow that the water has to get back to the Eno River other than the way the crow flies. The other consideration is the four-lane connector and the land that he owns. He invited the County Commissioners to come to his property and observe how the water flows instead of looking at it on a map. Commissioner Yuhasz said that he has some real problems with this proposal. He said that this area was originally proposed to protect the Seven Mile Creek reservoir. At this time, the County is not protecting this reservoir anymore and it is not even planning on protecting the potential Seven Mile Creek Reservoir because it is not defining the protected area in terms of a protected reservoir. He said that protecting a reservoir is not part of what is going on here. He made reference to page 7, the second bullet point: "The land area within one half mile on each side for an upstream distance of 2.5 miles (straight line distance)." He said that he would like to know why such a meat cleaver approach is being used to define what is being protected. He said that the critical number should be along the stream and not as the crow flies. He asked about the water quality justification for doing this. He made reference to the fourth bullet point and said that he does not see any explanation of why the County is doing 1.5 miles and why it is not 1 mile or 3 miles. He made reference to page 40 of the Planning Board minutes from March 3, 2010 and read: "The direction we got from the Board of County Commissioners in October was to make the definition be about as close as you can get to what the 1994 line was." He said that this is not something that speaks to protection of water quality. He said that he also looked at the minutes from the October 13th work session of the