Orange County NC Website
trying to make the landowners happy, the water quality is slowly but surely being eroded. <br /> If the recommendations are adopted from the CDM report, the quality of the water will be , � <br /> degraded by seventeen percent. Add the recommendations of the task force and it is, - <br /> degraded by 28% and the new impervious surface recommendations and it is degraded by 37%: <br /> If there are too many compromises and cuts, they will no longer be talking about clean -. .1 <br /> water. Once heavy metals and toxins enter the lake, they cannot be removed. She <br /> requested that the elected officials start their consideration with these percentages in <br /> mind. Select a percentage they think University Lake should be degraded. She-feels 17% <br /> is too high. Safe drinking water should be the first priority. After deciding the <br /> percent of degradation, then decide how to address the concerns of the landowners. Do not <br /> confuse the two issues but deal with them separately. Compromise will only result in <br /> unhealthy water. The equity issue will need to be addressed. Perhaps an appraisal of the <br /> land will help determine its value if it were to be zoned in five acre lots. As the <br /> Triangle grows, everyone' s property will increase in value. This is an attractive area <br /> where the quality of life is excellent. If safe drinking water is not available, property <br /> values will decrease. <br /> BILL BURCH, member of the Landowners Association, stated that clean water is the issue. <br /> What needs to be considered are other alternatives than those listed in the CDM report. <br /> He would like for the County to find other ways to protect the watershed and keep the <br /> restrictions away from the property owners. He talked about the handicapped and their <br /> inability to live in a three story house. He asked that the County look at the N.C. <br /> Environmental Health and Natural Resources guidelines. He had a conversation with Mr. <br /> Alan Klimek who stated that the County did not need five acres to protect the water system <br /> but that two acres would be sufficient in the WSI watershed. He did not say that <br /> detention ponds would be required on two acres as CDM indicates. He said the impervious <br /> ratio of six percent has created a lot of problems in Wake County. Mr. Klimek stated th:°-.. <br /> as long as it was a single family dwelling, there was no need for very strict impervious <br /> ratios. This takes the rights away from the people to construct swimming pools, tennis <br /> courts, a barn for a horse and a basketball goal. <br /> MARY BUSHNELL urged the elected officials to consider undertaking the land use control <br /> strategies as specified in the CDM Study. The essential question is how best to protect <br /> the water in the University Lake Watershed. In the CDM report, non-structural strategies <br /> allow for some degradation but it is minimal. The chart of other land use scenarios <br /> shows increasing degradation rather dramatically. The fragility, the small size of the <br /> watershed makes it very important that caution and great caring in how it is protected be <br /> used. The maintenance cost of the detention ponds need to be considered. The growth in <br /> this area that is expected in the next decade could be enormous and more water will be <br /> used. The decisions made now will have ramifications all the way down the line for the <br /> future. It would be very useful if the issue of establishing water protection standards <br /> could be separated from the issue of how to implement those standards and equitably share <br /> the cost and responsibility for implementing them as two separate items. The priority <br /> needs to be the protecting of the water. <br /> ERWIN DANZIGER stated that as a landowner he feels he needs some protection for the water. <br /> He supports Mr. Collins' recommendation. <br /> SARAH CARTER, rural resident of Orange County, expressed her concern for her family. <br /> She is heir to twenty acres that is to be divided between seven children. They are <br /> farmers and have always had clean water. She asked that they be allowed to divide this <br /> parcel using the two acre lot minimum instead of the five acre requirement. She asked <br /> that the rules not be changed in the middle of the game. <br />