Minutes - 12-12-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Planning Director Craig Benedict made general comments about this agenda item. He said that the six items on the public hearing have to da with economic development districts and some work that has been conducted by a joint task force of individuals from Orange County and Hillsborough. Since February 2000, two County Commissioners, two Hillsborough Commissioners, the Economic Development Director, the Hillsborough Planning Director and the Orange County Planning Director have held meetings twice a month to discuss the area near old NC 86, new NC 86, I-85, and I-40, which totals 800 acres. This has been designated an the County's land use plan since 1994 as an economic development district. Discussions with the Town of Hillsborough indicated that the present standards were inadequate to handle development in that general area. Based an the first few months of input, both the Town of Hillsborough and Orange County created some moratoria areas within the County. Areas within Hillsborough had afour-month moratorium and areas within Orange County had asix-month moratorium. He showed the moratoria areas that were up for discussion. The moratorium has been released in Hillsborough based on recommendations from the task force. The interest of the task force was to make sure that the economic development districts are viable, aesthetic, and would improve the general area. Craig Benedict explained each of the six items on the public hearing. The first item has to do with the creation of a limited office district. It is a text amendment and has nothing to da with anyone's property. The second item has to do with the creation of an Economic Development Special Entranceway District. The third item has to do with the actual rezoning of land shown as 3a and 3b to Limited Office. The fourth item is an extension of the six-month moratorium, which would have expired in January 2001 for areas A one and two. The extension of the moratorium is to April 2001. This extension would be to a time certain. The fifth item is some new regulatory standards. The Economic Development District Design Manual has been in effect since 1994 far the entire area that is within the economic development district in area A. After discussions with the task force and the general public, it was decided that the existing manual was laborious and difficult to understand. The task force is recommending that the manual be abridged to something more understandable. The sixth item is a continuation of the public hearing that was held on November 27t" and has to do with the subdivision of property in non-residential lands. This item suggests that subdivisions have larger lot sizes rather than the undefined minimum that was in the previous manual. This would reduce access points to old NC 86 and new NC 86. The task force has also suggested a balance of different uses for the economic district by creating some different categories of land use and zoning. He said that this entire area was developed as retail, which would have been permitted under the existing economic development design standards. Over 100,000 cars would be generated from the 800 acres. Anyone who owns property that is zoned to the Limited Office district could, by right, bring a proposal directly to the staff and would not have to go through a legislative process for approval. Any testimony ar written information after tonight's meeting can be submitted to the staff to be distributed to the Planning Board at their next meeting. Commissioner Jacobs spoke as a member of the task force that worked on this project. He said that the task force tried to make the standards the same for Hillsborough's and Orange County's jurisdiction. The task force has tried to accomplish master planning. They have tried to make this clear, simple, and flexible. This is an effort to create a supposition of certain kinds of activities taking place and a somewhat streamlined process to enable them to do so. The task force has tried to accent environmental issues, especially preservation of open space, how we define buffers, transportation, and connectivity. The task force has talked about having 20% retail, 25% officelflex space, 15°~ residential, 35% office, and 5°~ miscellaneous. One of the thrusts is to try and promote mixed use. Even with the office areas, they tried to include eating facilities within those uses so that people will not have to drive somewhere in order to eat and add to the traffic peak. The general sense is that this has been a rewarding and cooperative venture with Hillsborough. a. Creation of an "EDDILimited Office" zoning district in the Urange County permitted use zoning tables. The new district would permit primarily community and regional office development with accessary restaurants.