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APPROVED 10/13/2014 OC Board of Adjustment – 8/27/2014 Page 24 of 64 1 Larry Wright: Yes go ahead. 2 3 Jeff Schmitt: Mr. Harvey, does the UDO talk about easements and what this Board can or cannot do in 4 regards to granting easements or questioning easements? 5 6 Michael Harvey: Well, this Board, and I’m going to defer some of this to the county attorney, the issue of 7 easements is not for this Board to necessarily address. We obviously have language in the Unified 8 Development Ordinance dealing with easements as they relate to subdivision development, the creation 9 of roads, the creation of necessary right-of-way but as far as the establishment of easements for this type 10 of project, the ordinance does not require or establish any standards that is a private negotiation 11 between the property owner and the in this case utility. 12 13 Mark Micol: Can I ask a general question, he talks about impervious surface, any easement in Orange 14 County or let me ask you this, what leeway do the utilities have as far as the coverage of easements? 15 Can they put gravel, can they put concrete, pavement if they wanted to could they do that? 16 17 Michael Harvey: I don’t know if I’m qualified to answer that question, what I will say is that an easement 18 typically spells out use, it typically spells out what can and cannot happen in the easement and it typically 19 would establish rights with respect to development coverage or whatnot. The question that arises that 20 since it is an easement that is still on someone’s property, anything happening in that easement 21 specifically the placement of impervious surface area, does impact the overall developmental ability of 22 property consistent with the Unified Development Ordinance in the various limitations establishes therein. 23 As this Board knows, Article 4, our watershed management program, establishes for certain protected 24 and critical watershed overlay districts, impervious surface limits throughout the County. Some of which 25 are 6% some of which can be as high 36%. It depends on where you are located. Mr. Zaragoza 26 property I will testify to because I have firsthand knowledge is in the Cane Creek Protected Overlay 27 district and has a fairly restrictive impervious limit. That’s what I feel comfortable responding to in 28 answering that question. 29 30 Larry Wright: Any other questions from the Board? 31 32 Jeff Schmitt: Can we get counsel to comment relative to the easements and our purview about thinking 33 about them impacting on them? 34 35 James Bryan: Yeah, I should have just let the Board go on, I wish I could speak for months about this 36 based on a lot of implications and a lot of similarities but the short and sweet of it is that when you have 37 any sort of, what you are really asking about is relevancy and this is not relevant to any of the standards. 38 There are different sections of the UDO where easements are used as tools it’s not relevant to what the 39 Board is deciding tonight. It’s something for the general courts of justice to deal with whether they’re 40 granted an easement or not and what compensation they are given for that. What you’re looking for is 41 the particular standards called out in the UDO that Mr. Harvey has provided with the Finding of Facts and 42 anything whether those conditions are met and what could meet those conditions. The terms of specific 43 easements are beyond the powers of this Board. That is succinct an answer I can give. 44 45 Jeff Schmitt: Thank you. 46 47 Larry Wright: Any other questions from the members of the Board? You stay there because you’re 48 going to get a rebut, you’ll have an opportunity for a rebuttal. 49 50 Matthew Rhoads: I don’t actually have any questions for Mr. Zaragoza but I’ll respond to his comment to 51 my summary if that’s ok? Instead of going after each person it might be more efficient to do it that way. 52 53 Larry Wright: Well then each person can have the opportunity for their rebuttal after yours so I’m trying 54 to let you go right now. 55