Agenda - 12-05-2016 - 6-a - Minutes

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16 1 but he would hope the age restricted community would have covenants to address these other 2 issues. 3 Commissioner Jacobs said there are more and more cases of grandparents raising 4 grandchildren, which will lead to the existence of more exceptions to the rule. 5 Commissioner Dorosin asked if a covenant could be defined. 6 Craig Benedict said in order to be assessed for an impact fee, in the age restricted 7 category, the development must have a recorded document that could not be broken. He said 8 should the development ever wish to move away from being age restricted, it would then have 9 to pay the impact fee at the going rate at that time. 10 Commissioner Dorosin asked if the covenant would say that someone over the age of 11 55 would always reside in the property. 12 Craig Benedict said yes. 13 John Roberts said it would be something to that effect, and there is not a draft covenant 14 yet. He said it would be recorded in the Register of Deeds office, likely tied to a Home Owners 15 Association, and these homes are not single family detached, but usually part of a particular 16 community. 17 Commissioner Dorosin said the proposal suggests increasing the chosen fee by 10% 18 after the first year, and 10% again after the second year. He said these increases seem to be 19 at a faster rate than the last time impact fees were changed. 20 Craig Benedict said there were new impact fees that went into effect in 2008, and they 21 went up 10% each year, for four years. He said the 2008 analysis showed that the new fees 22 were higher than the old fees because of the increasing cost of schools. 23 Commissioner Dorosin asked if a new analysis would be done in 2019/2020, due to this 24 current analysis only going out two years. 25 Craig Benedict said the demographics do change, and staff would probably suggest 26 another analysis be completed around 2020. He said the data is improving with each analysis. 27 Commissioner Dorosin said all of these numbers are based on the actual study where 28 current children now live. He asked if the extent, to which these fees will drive the development 29 of houses over the next three years, is known. 30 Craig Benedict said it is not so much the fees that are the drivers, but rather the land 31 constraints and the housing market. 32 Commissioner Rich said the Chapel Hill Town Council asked why Orange County did 33 not do an analysis sooner than 10 years, and she will make a motion to do an analysis more 34 often to keep current. 35 Commissioner Rich said the Town Council also wondered why total square footage of a 36 house was not considered, instead of the number of bedrooms, but staff did explain to them in 37 detail about this. 38 39 PUBLIC COMMENT: 40 Jacob Rogers said he is with the Triangle Apartment Association and is here to express 41 concerns about these fees. He said developers will not swallow these fees, and the residents 42 will have higher rents and higher home prices. He said there was no proactive outreach, about 43 this proposal, to the people it will affect the most. He said Orange County is one of two 44 counties in the state that implement these fees. He said their association is involved with the 45 discussion of affordability, and they want to be involved in these conversations. He asked the 46 Board to forego a decision, and to ask staff to reach out to the stakeholders to discuss this 47 further. 48 Brenda Brantley said she is with the Triangle Apartment Association, and echoed the 49 comments of Jacob Rogers.