Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
1 <br />2 <br />3 <br />4 <br />5 <br />6 <br />7 <br />8 <br />9 <br />10 <br />11 <br />12 <br />13 <br />14 <br />15 <br />16 <br />17 <br />18 <br />19 <br />20 <br />21 <br />22 <br />23 <br />24 <br />25 <br />26 <br />27 <br />28 <br />29 <br />30 <br />31 <br />32 <br />33 <br />34 <br />35 <br />36 <br />37 <br />38 <br />39 <br />40 <br />41 <br />42 <br />43 <br />44 <br />45 <br />46 <br />47 <br />48 <br />49 <br />50 <br />51 <br />33 <br />EDD that we won't touch, but we all say it needs to be included. Let's pick a number — a <br />thousand feet, two thousand feet — and draw a line. A couple of years ago, he said, we added <br />five words to the Unified Development Ordinance that almost eliminated development at every <br />intersection with 1 -40 in Orange County: "where sewer and water exist." Those words were <br />added on the fly. Those words eliminate the otherwise prime developable properties at the 1 -40 <br />intersections with NC -86 and New Hope Church Road, because those areas are in the Rural <br />Buffer. I don't have an issue with the Rural Buffer, but I do have an issue with a conversation <br />dominated by "you cannot touch this." We have to revisit this sacrosanct attitude. We can use a <br />little common sense here. <br />We're not going to catch a lot of "big game," he said, but we caught one with Morinaga and <br />another with Wegman's. They will have an immediate impact. Maybe we need a lot more along <br />the scale of USA Dutch. I agree with that. I have no problem with all sizes. And they are paying <br />decent wages. It's disconcerting to me to hear phrases like "Orange County values" and <br />"Orange County vision." Orange County is gentrified. We are not a rural county. Chapel Hill is <br />not a village. Hillsborough is not a mill town. If we don't take a different path with our economic <br />development then we are going to become an elitist, gated community. <br />I want to know what my fellow Board members mean when they say we need to realign our <br />strategy, he said. Does that mean we walk away from what we have been doing? I hope that <br />means we need to go out to get everything we can get. Commissioner Rich said that to her it <br />means an inventory of what we already have and what we have not yet gotten, of thinking of <br />new ideas for what we are doing. What we're doing now — what we have been doing for 30 <br />years -- is not working. We need to start thinking at a higher level than how we have been <br />thinking. Commissioner McKee said that we should not change our approach just because there <br />will be a backlash in the community. I don't want to impinge upon the established residential <br />community next to the Eno EDD, he said, but we can take an area out of Eno, put water and <br />sewer there, and support some development. We have to have the willpower to stand up to the <br />backlash that's coming, he said. <br />Commissioner Price said that the Board has tried to protect the existing residential community <br />next to the Eno EDD. We've tried to put transitional kinds of development across the street from <br />residential areas so people are not living across from a manufacturing plant. Any plans should <br />be flexible. We need to reassess areas that have been stagnant for 30 years and decide anew <br />what to do with these chunks of land. <br />Commissioner Price said she was not seeing anything in the Timmons study about incubators, <br />cottage industries, small technology, etc. Those are the kinds of projects Jim Kitchen has been <br />working on with people in Chapel Hill. She noted that some of the Article 46 funds are being <br />used for small businesses. But most of the Timmons report is about manufacturing. I find that <br />kind of narrow, she said. Mr. Hines replied that Timmons looked for the "game changers" - the <br />big components and opportunities being missed for the small sites in Orange County if you had <br />the appropriate water and sewer infrastructure in place. There are a lot of indirect benefits to the <br />kinds of development Commissioner Price is talking about, he said. But we saw you already <br />taking steps to implement those sorts of things and wanted to show you the kinds of things you <br />are missing out on. Commissioner Price said she thinks the incubators, cottage industries, and <br />small technology businesses do not have to be indirect players, but significant components of a <br />diverse economic ecosystem. <br />Mr. Hines said that while sub - economies can underlie a local economy, Orange County will not <br />attract the kind of development it needs if it does not solve the water and sewer infrastructure <br />