Orange County NC Website
12 <br /> certificates of occupancy 365-days from building permit issuance create significant issues for <br /> large-scale complicated mixed-use projects such as ours. <br /> Time frames to submit a building permit application are within our control, but time frames to <br /> actually obtain building permits on large-scale projects are not. Receiving a building permit for <br /> a project our size can easily take 6 months or more to obtain. For example, building permits at <br /> our Carolina Square project took exactly 6 months to obtain, and that was with the Town <br /> working hard to help us expedite the approval. In Chapel Hill, many large projects are required <br /> to be reviewed first by the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI), and then by <br /> Town's Inspections Department. The NCDOI review times are 8-10 weeks for each review, <br /> and often multiple reviews are required to obtain approval. This time is in addition to the Town <br /> Inspection Department review times. Limited review staffs, project backlogs if several large <br /> projects come in at the same time and building code changes enacted mid-stream, are just <br /> some of the other factors that can delay permit issuance. <br /> Time frames to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy (C/O) on large projects are even harder to <br /> predict, and can vary on variety of factors some of which are completely out of our control. For <br /> example, the construction schedule of the 400-unit first phase of Carraway Village is projected <br /> at 30 months (well beyond the 365 days your draft Technical Resolution contemplated —this is <br /> from start to final C/O (note: this also assumes there are no unforeseen weather or site <br /> conditions that further delay construction). <br /> Another example is our Special Use Permit approval, which requires that, prior to the 2nd C/O <br /> being issued, all road improvements on Eubanks Road and the Martin Luther King, Jr. <br /> intersection be complete and accepted by NCDOT. Unforeseen weather or underground <br /> conditions, and NCDOT review and inspection delays could all cause significant impacts to our <br /> schedule, which would directly impact our ability to obtain C/O's. Carraway Village is a very <br /> large project, and the Special Use Permit includes 109 stipulations specific to the project, <br /> many of which are directly tied to issuance of final C/O's. <br /> We believe there is a simple solution to cover larger-scale projects (proposed below) that <br /> would meet both the County's needs to having a definitive end date on grandfathering, and <br /> allow a complicated project like Carraway Village to move through the approval and <br /> construction process without having hurdles that are risky or unachievable. <br /> Proposed Addition: <br /> Add a 3rd paragraph to current draft resolution covering large-scale projects (defined as 100+ <br /> units), which keeps the currently proposed end date and requires the fee be paid by then, but <br /> removes the requirements we cannot control, specifically issuance of building permits and <br /> C/O's. <br /> BE IT FURTHER ORDAINED THAT projects of 100-units in size or greater <br /> for which a Zoning Compliance Permit has been issued prior to January 1, <br /> 2017 and for which a building permit application has been submitted prior <br /> to January 1, 2018 may choose to pay either the public school impact fee <br /> that was in effect for 2016 for the housing type(s) proposed in the <br /> application or the fee required by the public school impact fee schedule in <br /> section 30-33 of Chapter 30, Article II of the Orange County Code of <br /> Ordinances, provided the fee is paid prior to June 30, 2019. <br />