Minutes 04-07-2011 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Commissioner Jacobs said that he knows that Hillsborough will immediately annex and require the developer to provide the infrastructure. He is not opposed to treating it like other EDDs, he is leery about indicating that the County is going to do anything without having some conversation soon with the Town of Hillsborough about how to proceed together. Craig Benedict said that this is just a placeholder and he agrees that there should be agreements for the future. He said that the four quadrants around I-40 were originally all in Orange County's economic development zones. Waterstone was not part of the extraterritorial jurisdiction. He said that there are annexation limits and this may give the opportunity to develop part of this EDD without having Hillsborough annex. Economic Development Director Gary Shope said that not all projects will be developer- driven in the Hillsborough EDD. Commissioner Gordon reiterated that, except for the first year of expenses, this is just a plan and the County can opt out of it. The next point is that she echoes some of the concerns about what this would mean regarding Hillsborough. She wants to emphasize that this is just a placeholder and not an obligation. She would like to work with Hillsborough to help pay for infrastructure. At some point, the County needs to have the vision of what will be done. She would like to see the County Commissioners talk about the principles and the guidelines of how to go forward with negotiations so that it is not ad-hoc. Gary Shope suggested developing a term sheet on projects as far as new investment, new tax base, new jobs, etc. This might be one way of letting the public know what is coming forward. Commissioner Jacobs said that Hillsborough has been very aggressive and with Mebane, it was negotiated that Mebane would allow the EDD to develop under the County's standards before annexing. He would like to get some kind of agreement like this with Hillsborough and Durham. Commissioner Hemminger arrived at 7:28 PM. Frank Clifton said that with each of these agreements, the utilities will be different. He also said that businesses sometimes do not want to be annexed because of higher taxes. The County's issue is that if the County does not plan for the future, then no one else will. Commissioner Gordon reinforced what Gary Shope said about developing a master plan for economic development. The Board agreed. Michael Talbert made reference to page 5 and the new projects —the Mebane EDD (pg. 43), the Hillsborough EDD (pg. 46), and Eno EDD (pg. 47). He said that a lot of the debt will have to be financed and the County needs a supplement for the debt service until there are customers paying the bills. He made reference to page 9 and made a correction. The Twin Creeks Park Road should say "access" instead of "entrance." On page 17, Southern Human Services Center, the description has been updated to reflect the Board's master plan in 2007 and 2010 where a formal master plan was authorized. On page 25, the Park at Blackwood Farm, the description was inadvertently left off and he provided this to the County Commissioners. On page 28, Conservation Easements, he said that there was consensus to move forward, but recognize the projects that would be funded with existing money. The Back Creek area and the Cane Creek area will be the next projects under negotiations to be funded with this project. On page 31, there was some language change in the description. Pages 38-47 have the details for the utilities. This reflects the additional projects and the $5.5 million.