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ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: December 5, 2011 <br />Action Agenda <br />Item No. ~_ <br />SUBJECT: Ado tion of the Code of General Ordinances <br />DEPARTMENT: Attorney's Office PUBLIC HEARING: (YIN) No <br />ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: <br />Codification Adoption Ordinance John Roberts, (919) 245-2318 <br />PURPOSE: To codify and adopt Orange County's general ordinances into a Code of <br />Ordinances. <br />BACKGROUND: On December 17, 1996 the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, <br />pursuant to North Carolina General Statute §153A-49, authorized the codification of its <br />ordinances into a Code of Ordinances, subject to attorney approval. Work commenced on this <br />project and in early 2001 a draft code was received by County staff. Further work was <br />performed preparing the Code for adoption. However, for various reasons, the Code of <br />Ordinances was never formally adopted. The Code, in its un-adopted form, remained <br />accessible on the County's web site and over the years caused confusion both to Orange <br />County staff who occasionally referenced the Code as the law of Orange County and also by <br />attorneys and local residents who engaged in business with the County. <br />In April 2009 the Board of County Commissioners employed a County Attorney as its first in- <br />house counsel. One of the initial directives the Board issued to the County Attorney was to <br />bring forward the codification of Orange County's ordinances for adoption. Since April 2009 the <br />office of the County Attorney has been preparing the Code for adoption. This task was made <br />more difficult by the vast number of amendments made to the ordinances from 2001 when the <br />Code was initially drafted through 2011 when the final draft Code was completed. <br />The Code of Ordinances does not include the Ordinance to Assign and Regulate Road Names, <br />House and Building Numbers in Orange County. This is a proposed ordinance that may soon <br />be adopted. If adopted, it will be submitted to Municipal Code Corporation for inclusion in the <br />Code. <br />This Code of Ordinances also does not include the Unified Development Ordinance ("UDO"). It <br />is the intent of the County Attorney to present the UDO for codification in the Summer of 2012 <br />as an appendix to the General Code. Once the UDO is codified, the codification of Orange <br />County's Ordinances will be complete. <br />