Orange County NC Website
dramatically reduce the mileage and driving time for students, parents, and school <br />buses. The Chapel Hill Transit serves the site. Of the 63.72 acres, 45 of the acres can <br />be used for buildings. The site is comprised of three different properties -Glover, <br />Fisher, and Minton. The combined appraised value of the property is $2.5 million. <br />There will be generous buffers on the property next to the residents. There are bio <br />retention areas within the parking lots to protect the environment downstream. At this <br />time, there is no football/soccer stadium with a track, but the board is still hoping to <br />provide more athletic facilities. The intent is to add this, or if not, to move to the Scroggs <br />field that is shared with Parks and Recreation. <br />Regarding the financial aspect, they believe that they have sufficient funds to <br />construct this school. The site acquisition would be about $1 million aver what is <br />budgeted and the site development would be about $2.5 million aver the budget. The <br />total budget for the school would be approximately $4 million aver the Orange County <br />construction standards budget. The school board has asked and the Board of County <br />Commissioners has agreed previously to reallocate the $12.8 million that was scheduled <br />in the bond referendum for the 10th elementary school to the third high school because it <br />is a more pressing need. They would be requiring $5.1 million of alternative financing by <br />the County. The school board would finance $6.3 million of the project and impact fees <br />would be used. Superintendent Pederson then compared funding scenarios. <br />He said that they are concerned about the impact of the new school on their CIP. <br />They will be losing $12 million over 10 years in projected revenues compared to the CIP <br />last year. The money they will need to finance the additional cost of the third high school <br />replaces the cost for a central office that is in their budget. Therefore, the central office <br />will move into the unfunded category. <br />Regarding eminent domain, of the three property owners, two have indicated <br />their willingness to sell and one is not interested in selling. They are going into this <br />knowing that they may need to use the power of eminent domain, which is granted to <br />school systems and the counties through the law. The down side of acquiring the <br />property through eminent domain is that they would not know the final cost of the <br />property until there is a legal process to decide this. His expectation is that if the cast of <br />the land is more than what was budgeted that they will need to use creativity to make up <br />for it. They are not asking the Board for additional funds. <br />In summary, he said that he believes that they have clearly demonstrated that a <br />third high school is needed and that the southern part of the district is where it is needed. <br />They also believe that they have provided a realistic estimate of the cost of constructing <br />a 1,000-student high school. They believe that they can open this school in 2006. <br />Valerie Foushee said that the school board respectfully requests that the Board <br />of County Commissioners approve the purchase of the three properties for the final <br />appraised value and that the Board of County Commissioners grant the Chapel Hill- <br />Carrboro City Schools Board of Education permission to exercise the statutory authority <br />to acquire the above mentioned parcels by the process of eminent domain. <br />Manager's Assessment of CHCCS Board of Education Proposal: <br />Chair Brown said that this is an Orange County work session and they do not <br />make decisions at work sessions. She said that there are copies of the Manager's <br />assessment of this proposal dated April 24, 2003. <br />Jahn Link made a PowerPoint presentation. He said that the County's focus is <br />not about the site but the overall financing plan and the factors that need to be <br />considered by both boards. They have included an excerpt of the school district staff's <br />analysis of both the Rock Haven Road and the Eubanks Road sites. He said that the <br />attachments were very important documents. <br />