Agenda - 01-16-1997 - 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Related Issues A letter outlining the concerns and opinions of the attorneys serving Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Orange County and OWASA was presented at the November 6th meeting of the Water and Sewer Boundary Task Force. The letter made two critical points which may serve to change the course of major elements of the utility service boundary discussions: 1) land use planning is a legislative function which cannot be restricted by an agreement other than the joint planning agreements which NC Legislature has specifically granted the local governments of Orange County the authority to create; and 2) equity issues cannot by resolved by agreement that restricts the exercise of governmental discretion in the use of tax funds for a public purpose. After the presentation of the draft review comments from the town and county attorneys, the task force's discussion of efforts to codify planning and funding equity issues within the utility service area agreement essentially concluded in confusion. By the end of the meeting, there was no clear agreement among committee members to either: 1) carry on with a scaled back process that would simply develop an agreement to delineate utility service area boundaries and outline utility service provision processes and responsibilities; or 2) carry on with the development of a boundary agreement while simultaneously addressing planning concerns through joint planning agreements and equity issues through some other process. Regardless of the strategy elected officials and policy makers eventually develop to conclude the boundary agreement process, the discussions-particularly those regarding funding utility construction for economic development and utility funding equity-have the potential to immediately affect current County initiatives and policies. One striking example of an immediate impact is the Chapel Hill Town Board's resolution requesting that Orange County fund $527,000 in sewer improvements within Chapel Hill. Both the request and the dollar figure are based on the County's 1987-88 funding of a similar percentage of the costs of constructing the Efland sewer system. This request apparently seeks to ensure that the citizens, or at least some of the citizens, of Chapel Hill benefit from an "equitable" expenditure of County dollars for provision of municipal type sewer collection service.