Agenda - 02-01-1994 - VII-A - Laserfiche WebLink

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COMMENTS AT JANUARY 18, 1994 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF 7 COMMISSIONERS PUBLIC HEARING Roy W. Roth, Chapel Hill ITEM VII B - Economic Development Districts I will limit my comments to the I40/Old NC 86 EDD. Basically, my comments will deal with my belief that the County will be loosing opens ace to relatively nog& controlled commercial development, if the I40/Old NC 86 EDC is approved as proposed. Figure I, in your package, is a copy of the area map from the Orange County-Hillsborough Cooperative Plan- with which you have become very familiar-showing the town of Hillsborough, and Transition& Open Areas; Figure II is the proposed I-40/Old NC 86 EDD as presented in the Design Manual; Figure III is this EDD superimposed upon the Cooperative Plan. I judge that about 70 to 80% of this EDD comes from open space as defined in the Cooperative Plan. Essentially, only the northwestern section of the EDD between Old NC 86 & I-40 does not come from open space. I contend that the formation of this EDD is a serious departure from the Cooperative Plan. I now want to look at how this once-open space is to be used. The Design Manual states that this EDD is characterized by widely scattered single-family residential developments and that the intent is to create a business park setting. An effort is to be made to control strip commercial development, retail stores, service stations, etc. I believe that this intent is not being followed, however, when you consider the make-up proposed in the Design Manual for this EDD. Figure IV summarizes the plans for the three different EDD's, as far as the proposed distribution between Rdmary Development. Stgond=Devdop=&Q=Space Areais concerned. The I40/Old NC 86 district has 379 acres proposed for Primary Development-which is over 30%more than either of the other EDD's - primary development,which accommodates a full range of industrial;retail& service uses. In other words, this EDD may have more commercial development, overall, than either of the other EDD's, even though its intent is to create a "business park setting", ancL it is presently almost three quarters open space. A counter argument made by some to this conclusion is that the Primary Development Areas are defined differently for each of the three EDD's. When looking at the Design Manual, I find this argument very questionable. The remaining Charts is my package summarize the permitted uses for Primary Development& Secondary Development in each of the three EDD's. You will note that there is very little difference in the proposed permitted uses in the Primary Development Areas among the three EDD's. Of the 155 or so "permitted uses" categorized in the Table, in>4 g=is the I40/Old NC 86 district noted to be different from one or the other districts. There are only four instances even, I believe, where the I40/Old NC 86 site is different from the I-85/US Highway 70 site-i.e. with motor vehicle service or maintenance stations& free- standing restautmrits or retail stores, where these will require a special use permit for the I40/Old NC 86 site. In conclusion, I laud the vision of the County Commissioners in looking toward future growth of the County. However, I have a major concern with this one proposed, I40/Old NC 86 district which drastically consumes open space, and is proposed to be little different in acaial permitted usage than the other districts, even though the intent has been expressed to make this district a" showcase" of blended residential and 'business park' environments. As a matter of fact, in the 379 acres proposed for Primary Development in this EDD, new residential use is not even allowed. I recommend holding off with this EDD until a clearer picture of the economic impact and the open space deterioration is known and/or better defined.