Agenda - 03-01-1994-X-C - Laserfiche WebLink

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• 45 re �Sq C c U Peter M. Pickens M4 17f A Cool Spring Drive lapel Hill , NC 27514 December 23 , 1992 /v n rur� ng Board c nA1C 78 lanning Board: On December 14 at the Open Hearing I spoke before you and the County Commissioners concerning the proposed rezoning of 620 acres for University Station. One of my main points was that we can ' t save the rural character of Orange County lust by protecting farms and preserving open space . The developments we build in our rural areas should themselves have rural character with rural , as opposed to urban restrictive covenants , which would give residents the option , the alternative, the freedom to live and pursue a country life in the country. Where else? - Certainly not in town or even in a village like University Station. I hope that you will give my comments some serious thought and not just in relation to University Station but to all future subdivisions proposed for Orange County. If you take 620 acres of our countryside , build a village on it with condos , shops , an inn, office buildings , etc . ; give it urban restrictive covenants that rule out, for example, any kind of livestock; supply it with city water and sewer; and zone it with the potential for incorporation, where is the rural character of that land going to be? It ' s going to be gone . long gone , in one big bite. I just don' t know how you would even consider allowing residential units in the countryside that have absolutely no land around them where the residents could at least grow vegetables and have some inkling of what living in the country is all about . Condos , apartments , townhouses - they don ' t belong in the country - that is , if you are serious about preserving rural character. Now I can see how you would consider houses with 1 or more acres around them. Now the homeowner has some land to do something with - a necessity for any semblance of country living I think you would agree; however, if his restrictive covenants won' t let him do anything on that land other than, say, ride the lawnmower , then he ' s stymied: He might as well be living in town . Of course, one might argue that a lot of people who are moving out into our rural areas these days don' t want to grow vegetables and don' t want to have chickens in their backyard or perhaps a goat or a cow or a horse , but someday they might, or if not them, then someone later on like their children, or children' s children. The land we have left in rural areas , on which houses are going to be built, has to be