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wanted to see if there may be County Commissioner support to pursue certain projects independent of the land use element update. Regarding the Speedway area, he said that at the November Quarterly Public Hearing last year on the draft land use element, there were some people that spoke about this area and were in general support of the preparation of a small area plan there and voiced a desire to amend the land use element text and the map and the zoning text and the map. The Planning Department and the Economic Development Commission have worked together to prepare a possible boundary area for the study, but he will refer to the area in a general fashion tonight. In general, the area is located in the extreme northeastern part of the County along NC 57. In the vicinity of the speedway, there is a go-cart raceway, an asphalt plant, and scattered low-density residential housing. Just over the County line in Durham Caunty, there is a quarry associated with the asphalt plant. He said that the existing land use element and zoning maps both classify the speedway area as agricultural-residential. The speedway, go-cart raceway, and asphalt plant are not permitted uses within the AR district, but are non-conforming uses. They only exist because they predated the zoning of the Little River Township in 1994, and were grandfathered in. He showed a chart with the connection between the special projects mentioned above and ordinance amendments. Both the Efland-Mebane Small Area Plan and the NC 57 Speedway Area Small Area Plan, if pursued, would both require land use element text and map as well as zoning text and map amendments. The Agricultural Support Enterprises project would require only text amendments to the land use element and zoning ordinance. He said that staff has the direction already for the Efland-Mebane Small Area Plan. He thinks that the Agricultural Support Enterprises project can be addressed as part of the next item on the agenda. Staff is asking the Board for authorization far Planning to work with the Economic Development Commission staff to develop a draft process to complete a small area plan for the Board's consideration. Tom Altieri said that the Caunty has already begun the process of preparing a small area plan for the Durham Economic Development District and there is a meeting on this plan tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. at the Government Services Center. Craig Benedict said that a fourth item that could be on this map as far as special projects is the Durham area EDD. This process was started at the end of last year. They have been meeting with community residents and have been looking at the permitted uses in the area. Chair Jacobs spoke in favor of the NC 57 Speedway area small area plan. He said that they started an effort to re-look at the non-conforming uses in the rural activity nodes. In the process of that, the small group from the EDC started looking at the speedway area. There is a lot of interest by property owners. He thinks that it would be important to let Durham know what they are doing with this because this area is in a Durham watershed. Chair Jacobs spoke in favor of the Durham County EDD and making sure that the Board of County Commissioners endorses this effort. He thinks it is important to have the Board endorse the effort. Durham should be involved in this also. Commissioner Halkiotis asked Craig Benedict if that was the last remaining asphalt plant in Orange Caunty and Craig Benedict said yes. Commissioner Foushee agreed with Chair Jacobs about the speedway area plan and the Durham EDD. Renee Price said that in previous meetings there have been people complaining of noises and she asked if these small area plans have something to address this. Jay Bryan asked why this was called the Durham EDD and not Orange-Durham and Craig Benedict said that it could be Orange-Durham, but it is called Durham because Durham will probably be the utility source for this area. Also, part of the urban growth area for the City of Durham comes into this area. Commissioner Gordon agreed that it should be called Orange CountylDurham EDD.