Agenda - 06-04-1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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lg- WAYNE PHEARS spoke on behalf of the applicant. Hello Teer who-owns the property. This is a request so that a mining operation can be put on this site. The only significant difference for use purposes between AR and RB is mining. There are different density limitations but the use difference is for mining. !cello Teer purchased it in 1984 for approximately 5440,000. At the time of purchase it was correctly zoned for a rock quarry with a Special -Use Permit. He stated he set forth getting the property ready for permitting by the State. Many of the people in the neighborhood were mounting active opposition in 1984 to the use of this property for mining. Those people went to the Commissioners. They held meetings in the Planning Department and the Planning staff was instructed to prepare a mailing list of people who were opposed to this quarry so that they could be kept abreast of any action that Teer took to move forward on the quarry. Teer did not have a chance to talk to folks and. explain its plans. They leased some additional property to go with the 440 acres. In the latter part of 1984, early 1985, the Orange County Planning staff was directed to find a way to tighten the mining regulations. A moratorium on" as a permitted use was taken to the Board of Commissioners meeting on February 5, 198 , and without any discussion was passed. Additionally a regulation was considered to determine whether mining should be prohibited in certain land use classifications. An amendment was prepared by the Planning staff to delete mining in certain land use classifications. The amendment did not delete mining on the Teer property. In the latter part of March, 1985, a representative of Teer called Susan Smith and said we would like to come in and submit an application to mine the property. She said I can't do it this week. I can do it Tuesday, April 2nd. On Monday, April 1st the Board of Commissioners met, changed the amendment which would not have prohibited mining so that mining was prohibited on the Teer property. The next morning when the Teer representatives came in Mrs. Smith has testified she said, I've got some good news and I've got some.bad news. The good news is that the moratorium has been lifted, but the bad news is that mining is no longer permitted on your property. However, there was a Comprehensive Plan being worked on and that the interchange was going to be a commercial node. The Planning staff ultimately did recommend that that interchange be a commercial node. In March of 1980, Commissioner Willhoit made a motion to delete the node and the node was deleted. The node would have permitted commercial and industrial type of activity at that interchange. instead of putting it in a node it was zoned rural buffer. Now the county tells us what a wonderful place this is to build a house. we have roughly four to five thousand feet of frontage along interstate 40.' That's a lot of frontage. The property is essentially long and narrow. The Federal Highway Administration, which is not known for overstating noise but which has a reputation on occasion of understating noise impacts, tells us that 540 feet into our property we will have noise in excess of 70 decibles. We have measured the noise on the property and its much worse than that even deeper into the property. The County has a number of experts who testified that this property was great for residential development. Those of you out there who own property in Rural Buffer along the interstate if you want to sell it for 55,000 an acre it would probably be O.F. If you want to get any more'out of it you have a real problem. The simple fact is that there is no use for our property, and for that matter for mangy of yours, as reasonable residential property given the development constraints in Orange County, given the presence of the Interstate, the noise and safety, security, and Pollution factors. Given all the things that come with being next to an interstate and given the fact that there are 38,000 acres in the Rural Buffer most of which aren't along an Interstate. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you can buy property that is not along the interstate to build your house, .you are going to do it. Therein lies the problem with The Planning Department has told us that this is inconsistent with the Land Use Plan.' Orange County has an exceedingly complex zonin, system as far as changes. What is clear is that only changes that are in the matrix,