Agenda - 08-24-1992 - Laserfiche WebLink

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a. Y tracts. However, options on some of these properties will be expiring before Cooperative Planning is completed and the unique window of opportunity now available to master plan so large an area will be lost permanently. Some property owners are considering other proposals for their land if University Station does not materialize. These proposals range from mobile home parks to a warehousing and distribution center. It is expected that Cooperative Planning will result in an Open Space plan category to correspond to the Open Space Area designation in the agreement. In effect, the designation of transition for the area could be viewed as a "holding" plan category for the area until the Cooperative Plan is completed and Open Space could be permanently applied. 3. The Rural CharacterlOpen Space Strategy. In the summer of 1990, the Rural Character Study Committee began deliberations on a strategic plan for protecting rural character (open space, natural resources, visual resources, agriculture) for the rural portions of Orange County, outside the Joint Planning Area with Chapel Hill and Carrboro. As a part of developing a plan, the Committee heard from nationally - renowned architects and planners such as Andres Duany (on neotraditional community planning) and Randall Arendt (on open -space development). Draft plans in May 1991 and again in the summer of 1992 have contained several types of development options which the Committee has identified as potential means of protecting rural character in Orange County. One of these techniques is the creation of an open - space version of Duany's neotraditional community. Intermittently termed "hamlets ", "Rural Villages" or most recently "Planned Communities ", this development style would preserve the majority (60 %) of the development tract in permanent open space. This open space would provide a buffer from adjoining tracts, and contain any sites of special natural areas or wildlife habitats as identified on the inventories to date. On the remaining 40% of the tract, buffered by open space on all sides, a higher- density mixed - use community could be- developed. Lot sizes in the community would average at least 10,000 square feet (0.23 acres), and a mix of housing types would be encouraged. Commercial /office uses designed at a scale to serve the residents of the community would be. permitted and encouraged in the "core" of the village. The overall density of the village would be 1.74 units per gross acre, or 4.35 units per acre within the developed portion of the community. As currently proposed in the Rural Character Study Committee draft, these communities would only be allowed in the Orange County /Hillsborough Cooperative Planning Area "Open Space Area" as mentioned above; or in the future, in other similar areas near Mebane or Durham where water and sewer service is available. 11 2r