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Craig Benedict, Director, Orange County Planning Department: <br />"My name is Craig Benedict, Orange County Planning Director. Tonight we will be <br />addressing four items. The first three items are amendments to our Zoning Ordinance. The last <br />item is a subdivision amendment, which is very closely related to enforcement provisions that <br />are noted in the zoning. So, we have items, actually the third and fourth items we'll be talking <br />about tonight are enforcement provisions: One for subdivision and one for zoning. <br />"The first item has to do with Outdoor Lighting Standards. Presently, the County has <br />limited standards for outdoor lighting. I'll do a presentation talking about some new standards <br />there. <br />"The second item has to da with stream buffers. Presently stream buffers and streams <br />are identified by U.S.G.S. maps. We are increasing the definitions we have for stream <br />identification. <br />a. Amend Article 6 to establish Outdoor Liahtina Standards <br />Craig Benedict: "I will move my location now to the dais behind you and I will start off with the <br />outdoor lighting <br />"My staff will get the people who have signed in for the pu61lc hearing and 1 do <br />understand that there are some people who do want to speak on a few of these items. <br />"Since we do have two meetings wrapped into one tonight, we will move with all due <br />speed and with all proper comment that we can as we go through these items tonight. The first <br />item that we are taking a look at tonight is outdoor lighting standards. This is something that <br />has been put together based on comments from both our Planning Board, from the citizens that <br />see new developments come in the area, and from the Commission far the Environment who <br />has also taken up this as something to examine. The one area that we are talking about <br />presently is existing standards, which are just limited to our economic development districts. <br />And even within the economic development districts, there are minor references to where the <br />lights are located and things of that nature. We will talk about the proposed standards and we <br />will talk about not just lighting but the amount of energy and energy conservation that is involved <br />in lighting. And we will talk about what it means when you change regulations from one thing to <br />the next. <br />"Presently the only reference to asking for lighting standards in our present code is a <br />section at the end of our implementation guidelines that says "and any other information that is <br />necessary." And so we have asked for this information when we review site plans. Most rural <br />subdivisions are not putting lighting in them so we are in no way asking for people to light rural <br />subdivisions; but if they do, we want to make sure of the light spill is a minimum. And as I <br />mentioned, economic development districts da have some standards there. The proposed <br />standards do a few different things. The amount of light spill that comes in different areas of the <br />county if the lighting standards are not appropriate can cause a certain amount of sky glow and <br />it can damage the typical night sky that a lot of people enjoy. <br />"This light pollution that I think a lot of people can attest to in the last five to ten years <br />has been appreciable. And was even recognized last week on a foggy night when I was driving <br />back from Carrboro and in the distance on Highway 54 you could see a major glow. I said that <br />