Agenda - 09-08-2014 - C5 - Laserfiche WebLink

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:. whereas 20+ years ago, interested people likely had to obtain hard copies of agendas /materials directly from the County Clerk. Agenda Process Internal processes in the Planning Department, Manager's Office, and Clerk's office will need to be updated if the amendments are adopted. Initial meetings between the departments have indicated that necessary adjustments can be made although it will be a change from existing processes. An example of an internal change is that, in order to meet statutory requirements, the first legal advertisement for the public hearing would run on the same day internal departmental agenda review occurs (generally Wednesday afternoon). The current internal agenda setting process allows items to be "bumped" from agendas if necessary; public hearing items could not be "bumped" without incurring costs of running new legal advertisements and running cancellation ads, if necessary. Additionally, for items that require mailed notifications, Planning staff would likely have already prepared the notifications for mailing by the time agenda review occurs, although the actual mail out is on Friday. If public hearing dates are chosen that do not correspond to a regular BOCC meeting, for example, holding public hearings on BOCC work session dates, the internal agenda process is different. However, staff would have little ability to remove public hearing items that were filed by published application deadline dates. The existing practice of isolating LIDO /Comprehensive Plan- related items on separate meeting agendas (the quarterly public hearings) likely results in more predictable BOCC regular meetings since some planning - related items can generate a great deal of public interest and comment. However, most items in recent years have not had significant public comment at the quarterly public hearings. Currently, quarterly public hearing agendas are normally posted to the website at least 10 calendar days prior to the public hearing. If land use public hearings become part of the BOCC agendas, the materials for the public hearing would be posted along with the BOCC agenda (generally 4 calendar days prior to the meeting date). Orange County's practice of holding quarterly public hearings is fairly unique in North Carolina (staff is aware of only one other local government — the Town of Hillsborough — that limits public hearing dates to only four times per year). Most local governments in North Carolina have at least one meeting per month where planning - related items can be heard (either as part of a regular meeting or as a meeting completely set aside for planning- related items); some have more than one meeting per month. It should also be noted that having more potential public hearing dates per year would likely spread out the same number of items per year over more meetings (e.g., there would be fewer items per hearing date). The number of items Orange County typically hears in a given year likely does not warrant a monthly meeting set aside only for planning - related items since there have been quarterly public hearing dates with only a small number of "easier" items. It should be noted that, especially for non - government initiated items, it could be undesirable to limit the number of items on any particular agenda if the applicant has 4