Minutes 05-27-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Michael Fox: And that ultimately they will grow to approximately 30 feet. Robert Cantwell: Ultimately, for how many years will that be? Michael Fox: I get to ask the questions here. Robert Cantwell: Sorry. Michael Fox: And as far as your opinion of property value, do you have any expertise in terms of assessing property values. Robert Cantwell: We have actually hired professional appraisers to address that question. Michael Fox: And that's what you are basing this on. Robert Cantwell: Absolutely. Michael Fox: Okay. I don't have any further questions. Thank you, Mr. Rooks. David Rooks: Mr. Chairman, at this point we call Pam Davis. And I believe earlier we had circulated Mrs. Davis' appraisal report. I would ask at this point, Mrs. Davis, if you would briefly summarize your background, education, knowledge and experience in appraising, and then a summary of your work in this particular case. Pam Davis: My name is Pam Davis. I am a state certified - Pete Hallenbeck: Have you been sworn in? Pam Davis: I have been sworn in, yes. I am a state certified residential real estate appraiser in Orange County, have been for almost 30 years. My license number is A-76. There is now over 7,000 appraisers in the state, and I am number 76, so I have been doing this a long time. My home base is Chapel Hill, Orange County. I'm not from Zebulon. I'm not from Goldsboro. I'm from Chapel Hill. I've done thousands of appraisals here, and what I did was look specifically at this property that is owned by the Cantwell and Weigman, which if you look at that diagram up on the screen —where you see the blue area and you see the road to the left—their property is immediately to the south. In fact the green line actually goes through a portion of their vacant lot. They've got a vacant lot there immediately to the south and then their house in a 2 acre lot a little bit further south. So, in order to address this and try to determine whether this solar farm would affect their value, I did an estimate of their property value as it is —with the home and 2 acres - and then a separate evaluation of the vacant lot, which is also about 2 acres. So, appraising the property as-is is a very simple task for me. That's what I've been doing for 30 years. Appraising the property assuming that the solar farm already exists was a little bit more difficult. So, to do that, I reviewed the site plan. I visited the White Cross property, and I made a determination in my mind of how the view would change, which is essentially as those pictures showed —the before and after -the current and the proposed. There is not a lot of data out there about single family houses selling adjacent to solar farms since it's such a new development. So, I looked at other adverse conditions, such as power lines, power transition lines, busy highways, transformers, anything that could be a negative view. And having done this for 30 years, I could — I was very comfortable in evaluating the affect.