Orange County NC Website
APPROVED 2/14/2000 <br />MINUTES <br />ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br />WORK SESSION <br />OCTOBER 12, 1999 <br />The Orange County Board of Commissioners met in regular session on Tuesday, <br />October 12, 1999 at 7:30 p.m. in the meeting room of the Government Services Center in <br />Hillsborough, North Carolina. <br />COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Alice M. Gordon and Commissioners <br />Margaret W. Brown, Moses Carey, Jr., Stephen H. Halkiotis and Barry Jacobs <br />COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: Geoffrey Gledhill <br />STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Managers <br />Albert Kittrell and Rod Visser, and Clerk to the Board Beverly A. Blythe (all other staff members <br />will be identified appropriately below). <br />NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT <br />AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE. ALL RECORDINGS OF THE MEETING WILL <br />BE KEPT FOR 5 YEARS. <br />1. "A Lands Legacy Program for Orange County" - First Draft <br />Environment and Resource Conservation Director David Stancil made this presentation. <br />He introduced Rich Shaw who will be starting on Monday as the new Resource Manager. He <br />said that he chose the words "Lands Legacy" because there is a federal initiative for a lands <br />legacy program to develop a way to preserve resources in the country, and also because this <br />program is for future generations as well as current citizens. David Stancil said that in 1998, 5.3 <br />billion dollars was approved for funding for open space preservation nationwide. He mentioned <br />the 44 million dollars of funding that the General Assembly approved which includes the Clean <br />Water Management Trust Fund, the Natural Heritage Fund, and the Parks and Recreation Trust <br />Fund. <br />David Stancil made reference to the section on what is known about Orange County's <br />resources. He made reference to the mapping and said that an inventory has been done of all <br />Orange County lands. Of the 256,000 acres in the County, Orange County currently owns 730 <br />acres for all purposes, which is 0.3% of the County land area. An inventory was also done on <br />some of the other landowners in the County. He said that the County's largest landowner is <br />Duke University, owning almost 5,000 acres. The County's second largest landowner is <br />OWASA, owning approximately 3,200 acres. The County's third largest landowner is UNC, <br />owning 2,500-2,800 acres. Eno State Park owns approximately 1,930 acres. Among the local <br />governments, Hillsborough is the largest landowner. <br />He referred to page 12 of the document and said that a great deal is known about the <br />natural resource inventories Orange County has. In terms of the GIS database, the primary <br />objective is to identify what the most significant resources in the County are. He said that this <br />database could be used to target land acquisition by the County. He said that for every <br />opportunity for acquisition of the County's resources, there are some basic questions that <br />should be considered. He referred to the table on page 15 for a list of these questions. <br />On pages 18 and 19 there are suggested criteria in terms of assessing properties that <br />could contain natural areas and wildlife habitat.