Agenda - 06-12-2007-4ii - Laserfiche WebLink

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i~' DRAFT Memorandum To: Orange County Board of County Commissioners Chapel Hill Town Council Carrboro Board of Aldermen From: Laura Blackmon, County Manager Date: June 12, 2007 Subject: Agricultural Support Enterprises Background At a March 2004 Joint Planning Area Planning Public Hearing, Orange County Planning Staff presented information on an on-going initiative hosted by the Economic Development, Planning and Environment and Resource Conservation departments to provide more business opportunities for local farmers in the rural parts of the county. The project continues to be part of the County's effort to preserve farmland and farming as a viable economic pursuit. The purpose of this memorandum is to provide our Joint Planning Area (JPA) partners with an update of this project and to begin a dialogue on the future of farming in the Rural Buffer.. Agricultural Support Enterprises (ASE) Agricultural support enterprises are becoming increasingly important to the survival of our local farms. The focus of the agricultural support enterprises project is to add new farm-related uses to our zoning ordinance that would provide farmers with opportunities to gain more revenue from their farms. These new uses would be logical extensions to existing farm operations, such as corn mazes (agritourism), roadside stands (direct marketing) and small-scale processing facilities to make sauces (value-added), as well as services related to farming such as feed stores and large animal veterinary services. Process Farmers would be required to go through a standard process and obtain a permit like any other development project. (Bona fide farm purposes, which are exempt from zoning per the North Carolina General Statutes, would remain exempt.) Staff are reviewing the existing permit process, as part of this initiative, and are considering ways to streamline it or, at least, to make it more user-friendly. While most of the potential changes to our zoning ordinance would only affect the rural parts of the county, it is possible that some changes may have implications within the Rural Buffer. With that in mind, County staff wanted to provide our JPA partners with an update on the project prior to any formal consideration of amendments. Rural Buffer Intent The second component to this memorandum is to revisit the original intent of the Rural Buffer, to begin a dialogue with our JPA partners to determine if this intent is still valid/appropriate as it pertains to agriculture and related agricultural enterprises. When the Joint Planning Land Use Plan was adopted in 1986, the state of local farming was very different from what it is today. It was assumed that the area within the Rural Buffer Agricultural Support Enterprises Page 1