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24 <br /> Staff Response. The provision contained in Section III-D-1-c, Concept Plan Approval/Application <br /> Requirements, was added as an incentive to allow developers to reduce costs by foregoing <br /> conventional plan preparation and focusing specifically on a Flexible Development plan. <br /> Rural Buffer applicability. The specific issue is whether land within the Rural Buffer <br /> should be subject to the Flexible Development provisions. <br /> Staff Response. The Rural Buffer is located in the Orange County-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Joint <br /> Planning Area. When the Rural Character Strategies for the Rural Buffer were prepared, a joint <br /> public hearing was held with Chapel Hill and Carrboro to provide an opportunity for <br /> review/comment consistent with the Joint Planning Agreement. Application of the Flexible <br /> Development provisions within the Rural Buffer has not been proposed, so that a similar process <br /> might be undertaken with the two municipalities. <br /> Open space percentage. The specific issue is that the percentage of open space required <br /> (e.g.,33%) is too low. <br /> Staff Response. Suggested alternatives to the open space percentage contained in the Flexible <br /> Development proposal are as follows: <br /> • 501/6 open space requirement, applied to buildable land only, after subtracting out Primary <br /> Conservation Areas or"unbuildable"floodplains, wetlands, and steep slopes; or <br /> • 50% open space requirement, applied to total tract; or <br /> • 40% open space requirement, applied to total tract, as adopted by the Town of Carrboro; or <br /> • 33% open space requirement, applied to buildable land only. <br /> To provide some basis for comparison, the Flexible Development standard was compared to each <br /> of above mentioned options, applied to a 100-acre tract with: no unbuildable land; 25 acres of <br /> unbuildable land; and 50 acres of unbuildable land. As shown on Attachment A, one obvious <br /> conclusion is that as the percentage of open space required increases so does the amount of land. <br /> For those persons advocating a 50% (or 33%) open space requirement after deducting <br /> unbuildable land, it is also obvious that that standard results in a higher percentage of open space, <br /> depending upon the amount of unbuildable land present on the site. As an example, when one- <br /> fourth of the tract is unbuildable, the 50% standard actually becomes a 63% open space <br /> requirement, while the 33% standard becomes a 50% requirement. Where one-half of the tract is <br /> unbuildable, the 50% standard becomes a 75% open space requirement, while the 33% standard <br /> becomes a 67% requirement. Likewise, as the permitted density increases, so does the density of <br /> the development area(e.g.,buildable area), reaching levels under one- and two-acre zoning which <br /> would require the use of community systems or access to public sewer to be feasible. <br /> The issues of density and water and sewer availability, as well as housing cost, are also evident <br /> from review of a November 10 Wall Street Journal article, provided by a citizen and cited as <br />