Agenda - 01-06-1986 - Laserfiche WebLink

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SHOP BY MAIL AND SAVEI irla;‘‘g gafed camping hunting and Fishing Equipment 22 ENTERPRISE WAY P.O.BOX 1500 CHAPEL HILL,NORTH CAROLINA 27515 Outdoor Wear December 2, 1985 Mr. Don Wilhoit,IlChairman County Commissioners Office Orange County Courthouse 106 E. Margaret Lane Hillsborough, N.C. 27278 Dear Mr. Wilhoitl: I am writing to you in the hope that I may be able to provide useful background information on how we have come to be in our current zoning dilemma. In 1978 , we built our initial offices on 8.5 acres we had purchased in Bingham Township. We built a warehouse addition in 1980. At that time, all of our land was unzoned. We were assured from the outset that, as our use of the property (which has not changed) involved no pollution, minimal traffic impact on Highway 54, required no water or sewage resources from the city or county, and was ',adequately covered by the county fire and sheriff' s department, that', we should have no problems with expansion of our facilities on thle same property for the same use. In Septembe,r 1981, the County Land Use Plan was adopted. While we pretended no expertise in the technical aspects of the zoning process, we took great pains to reassure ourselves that the zoning would not affect our use of our land and we were assured on more than one occasion that the zoning process would permit the uses to which our land and buildings were being put. Further, during the discussions about the possible construction of the airport in Bingham Township in 1983 , we pointedly inquired about any possible impact which that development would have on our expansion. We were told by the authorized representative of the planning staff at that time that our expansion would be limited to a total of 87 ,822 square feet on the 8.5 acres which we own. Based on these assurances we worked hard to expand our busi- nesses (though without changing the use of the property in any way which would impact building regulations) ; the number of our employees gradually grew to the present level of about 130 , a number of which our present premises is barely able to contain. Since we have been repeatedly assured that expansion of our facilities would be approved to the above mentioned limit, we had our architects draw up plans in the spring of this year. Only then were we informed that such expansion, otherwise entirely in accordance with the plans which we consistently proposed over the years, would not be allowed because of