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Approved 1/11/2016 OC Board of Adjustment – 11/9/15 Page 46 of 48 probably unnecessary. 1 2 Barry Katz: Ok, I see, it’s more hypothetical. Thank you. 3 4 Karen Barrows: Is there further discussion or are we prepared to make a motion? 5 6 MOTION made by Barry Katz that we find that for section 5.3.2 a to b that the applicant has not met the criteria of maintaining 7 or enhancing the value of contiguous property based on the absence of conformity testimony. Susan Halkiotis seconded. 8 VOTE: Unanimous 9 10 Karen Barrows: So we’re up to the last section 8.3.2 a to c. The harmony issue. 11 12 Barry Katz: Well I’ll say this, it’s in compliance with the plan. The physical development, there’s no question about that. That’s why 13 we’re here. But the location in character. This is the rural character of this particular community. And whether this event facility is in 14 with that character. From everything that we’ve heard, alright I guess we have to talk about, this is where we can talk about the 15 acoustics. There is no documented evidence that they will be able to maintain the sound within the venue. We’ve heard concerns 16 regarding how the sound, if it gets out of the venue, can affect the community nearby, the adjacent properties and others. Both 17 humans and animals. And we’ve heard the fact that being indoors does not help, necessarily, in minimizing the noise. So, I say 18 that the applicant has failed to, at this hearing, to demonstrate that they could control the sound within the venue and that means 19 that they’ve put the community at risk of changing its character. You’re talking about 30 decibels lower than the sound of the air 20 conditioning in your house, that’s very quiet. Putting in a potential base sound, intermittently would be disturbing and it would 21 alter the character. Well, there were testimony regarding the fact that people use this land, use Morrow Mill to bike and several 22 children play on it, people ride their horse on this road, and again people coming to this venue on an individual occasion I feel 23 would not be prepared to be as careful as they would need to be with the existing community as it is now. So I don’t think that 24 that’s in character. This place may be beautiful and it may be hidden but that’s not enough to be within the character of this 25 community. 26 27 Susan Halkiotis: I think that this was my second concern, safety of course being first, when we began gathering data tonight. Was 28 especially that base sound and I think that anybody, I live in the country and anybody that’s ever heard that is sensitive to how well 29 that sound carries. And I live a half a mile of a main road and occasionally we’re startled thinking that maybe someone’s in the 30 driveway. So I’m sensitive to that and just at how disruptive it is. So, I don’t know where we go from here, I know what some of the 31 information we’ve been given says but, that’s something that I think really needs to be addressed because I know what kind of 32 impact it has, and I know what kind of impact it can have if you’ve got children and families and you need to go to work in the 33 morning and so forth so... again, this was my second most sensitive topic. 34 35 Karen Barrows: Matt? 36 37 Matt Hughes: Sound is an interesting thing. I grew up not too far from here, just a few roads away and I remember in high school 38 how both Cedar Ridge and Orange both managed to play a home game at night and I could hear both of their marching bands. I 39 lived close to the center of town and I thought, well that’s a very strange thing. So when Dr. Stewart was here that certainly 40 resonated with me because it was at night, seemingly I wouldn’t hear anything else from those schools any other time of the day, 41 then again I should be in school so I wouldn’t. But also, growing up, visiting grandparents that lived in the country, where you could 42 hear the highway at night but couldn’t hear it in the day so I understand that piece particularly if things were going on at night. I will 43 say that I think that this event space could possibly be in harmony with the setting. I could see where there could be a great allure 44 in that and I understand that the people have a lot of investment, emotional and financial, on both sides and that’s something I saw 45 here today but, I think with this community as sparsely populated as it is where you see so little traffic, it would dramatically change 46 the environment. Maybe not necessarily the actually environment but certainly in terms of what people are used to on a daily basis 47 and I think that this would not be in harmony in where we’re talking about. 48 49 Barry Katz: This harmony is aggravated by the discontinuity of the events- people live in a certain way then, all of a sudden, 50 there’s something happening. They don’t know that something’s happening, they have the risk of encounters in an unpredictable 51 manner for a community like this it makes it even more of a risk and less in harmony. 52 53 Karen Barrows: I agree with that I’ve heard but my only concern is this is an allowable use for the state government so if that’s true 54