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14 <br /> 4512 Powder Mill Road <br /> Chapel Hill, NC 27514-9641 <br /> December 10, 1995 <br /> Orange County Board of Commissioners <br /> Orange County Planning Board <br /> P.O. Box 8181 <br /> Hillsborough, NC 27278 <br /> Subject: Flexible Development/Open Space Proposals <br /> This letter is to reiterate and expand upon my testimony at the public hearing <br /> on November 27th. Although I believe the terms of the debate over rural <br /> character preservation have shifted in a positive direction in the last <br /> several years, there are still significant issues that need to be resolved. <br /> Both this proposal, and the Rural Character Study Committee report upon which <br /> it is loosely based, use words like "conserve," "preserve," "agriculture" and <br /> "wildlife habitats" to state achievable quality of life and enviroamental <br /> objectives as we manage development in Orange County. The proposal, however, <br /> falls short of its objectives. There are two underlying assumptions in this <br /> proposal that need to be made explicit and carefully examined. <br /> The first premise is that building "better" suburbs will help achieve rural <br /> character preservation and that to attempt to do more would be too much. In a <br /> recent article published in the Wall Street Journal ("New Communities Make it <br /> Easy Being Green," 11/10/95, pg B14), one can quickly conclude that <br /> conservation-oriented development is not experimental, it is not even cutting <br /> edge, it is an emerging market. Enlightened developers are quoted in the <br /> article saying they are not engaged in philanthropic projects, but rather <br /> business ventures. "In a survey last year. . .78% of 800 consumers who bought <br /> or shopped in planned comnnuiities cited 'lots of natural, open space' as <br /> essential or very important" (emphasis added). <br /> Although the article draws heavily on examples from the very high-end market <br /> segment most interesting to the Wall Street Journal audience, there are <br /> examples of lot and home prices that are consistent with those found in-orange <br /> County today. Interestingly, the examples given have between 68% and 98% <br /> set-asides for conservation, not the 33% suggested in the current County <br /> proposal. In one case, with house prices in the $200,000 to $400,000 range, <br /> the development is concentrated on 20% of the land; "the rest is devoted to <br /> farmland, organic gardens, a nature preserve and cam:mmnity space:" that's 80% <br /> natural open space. This development gets about 100 prospective buyers a <br /> week. <br /> Randall Arendt's Rural By Design guidelines suggest eliminating primary <br /> conservation areas from the calculation and then preserving an additional 50% <br /> of the remaining land in open space. Although any figure chosen will be <br /> somewhat arbitrary, it's clear that the currently proposed 33% doesn't came <br /> close to the preservation and conservation objective; Carrboro has a higher <br /> open space requirement for its transition area than this proposal has for <br /> exurban and rural areas of the County. The "Flexible Development" proposal <br /> would consider 98 acres divided into 16 4 acre lots and 34 conventional 1 acre <br />