Agenda - 11-01-1993 - VIII-A - Laserfiche WebLink

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106 6291 Orange Grove Road Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 August 30, 1993 The Orange County Planning Board Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 Dear Sirs: According to the August 25 Chapel Hill Herald, pages 3 and 12, OWASA officials are saying that the already strict lot size and percent impervious area rules imposed on Cane Creek Watershed residents are not strict enough to suit them. Several years ago OWASA decided they wanted the community of Orange Grove to furnish them land for one of Chapel Hill's water supply reservoirs. Now they are demanding that our residents jump through a special set of expensive environmental hoops to make their lake water as clean as they think it should be. It supposedly is not as pristine as they predicted it would be! In my opinion the Cane Creek Reservoir is not any more important than any other drinking water reservoir in North Carolina even if it did cost 20 million dollars. For this reason and others that I will mention subsequently, I think that the rules set forth by the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission governing all watershed development in North Carolina are plenty strict to maintain water quality. Additionally, I have been shown absolutely no legitimate reason why Orange County's rules governing Cane Creek should be any different than State requirements. The price of land in Orange Grove is sky high these days since it has become a bedroom suburb of Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh. If the proposed regulations are forced on Cane Creek Watershed it will pose severe economic discrimination against many citizens who may want to live in the area. If OWASA has its way as proposed in the newspaper report, a house lot in the area may soon cost a minimum of$50,000. I don't know many wage earners who will be able to afford to own a lot in Cane Creek Watershed - much less build a home. It seems like the city crowd who makes the rules wants to replace Cane Creek Watershed farms with only wealthy folks who can afford to buy large tracts for their country estates. Excessively strict watershed rules will not only exclude many families who want to buy land and live in Cane Creek Watershed, but also may make it very difficult for citizens who now own larger land tracts to utilize them for the purposes for which they have planned. The bottom line is that all the citizens in the Cane Creek Watershed (present and future) will pay an unfairly high price for stricter than necessary water quality rules.