Orange County NC Website
, 3o- <br />The County is concerned about the logical and safe <br />extension of public roads throughout the County and <br />also notes that private roads cannot be served by school <br />buses and sometimes not by rescue squads and fire <br />trucks. Therefore, the County will only approve private <br />roads where the "benefits" outweigh the negative <br />aspects. Private roads will never be approved simply to <br />save money. <br />Private roads are a privilege, and not a right, and must <br />be justified by the particular lot arrangement and <br />benefits provided by each development. It is hoped that <br />the following regulations and standards convey the sense <br />that private roads can be used, but only where they <br />clearly meet the spirit as well as the letter of the <br />following criteria: <br />Regarding other suggested revisions in the Private Road <br />Standards, Best mentioned the proposal to relieve the County <br />of inspection authority for private roads and require that it <br />be done by a professional engineer or registered land <br />surveyor: He stated he would like to see the option left in <br />that would allow the developer the choice of having the County <br />or engineer /surveyor do the private road inspection; the <br />County would not charge a fee unless they did the inspection. <br />He said he was trying to take into account small family <br />subdivisions of only a few lots. <br />Faircloth stated that if there were such a choice, then no <br />one would want to hire a professional and the County would be <br />back to doing all the inspections. Faircloth said he thought <br />more time should be put into the design and inspection of <br />private roads and that this was one of the main reasons for <br />the proposed revisions. Best asked about situations where a <br />person is just trying to do a small road to serve a few lots. <br />Fairclot -h said this was something to consider, but not a <br />clear -cut thing. He said he didn't want to put an undue <br />burden on people cutting off a few lots for = arnily members, <br />but it is often difficult to determine who is family and <br />who is subdividing to sell. Bell cautioned that it wouldn't <br />really matter if the subdivider was cutting off lots for <br />family or to sell, citing previous comments by the County <br />Attorney regarding concerns about equal protection of the law. <br />Faircloth said you probably couldn't differentiate between a <br />person subdividing for family and for profit, but you could <br />differentiate between classes of road, e.g., A, B, or C. <br />Best asked Faircloth why he thought subdividers would fall <br />back on the County to do private road inspections. He (Best) <br />stated that if the person was going to need a surveyor in the <br />first place, would it end un casting that much more. cie <br />further stated that everything we hear from developers <br />9 <br />