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Orange County has been working on a zoning program known as “Agricultural Support Enterprises” (ASE) intermittently since 2001. The concept and necessary UDO text amendments were discussed at the November 21, 2013 Assembly of Governments (AOG) meeting (agenda materials are at: http://orangecountync.gov/occlerks/131121.pdf) and, as a result of discussion at the AOG meeting, a determination was made that text changes to the Joint Planning Land Use Plan and Agreement would be necessary in order for the County to adopt Unified Development Ordinance text changes that would allow appropriate agricultural support uses in the Rural Buffer. The purpose of the ASE program is to augment allowable agricultural-related uses farmers throughout Orange County’s planning jurisdiction, which includes the Rural Buffer, can pursue in order to generate additional farm-related income and to potentially allow farming support/related uses in rural areas. The program seeks to minimize any adverse impacts on adjoining property by applying special standards for specific uses and the development standards in the County’s UDO required for all projects. One of the main ideas behind the program is that by better enabling farmers to stay in the business of farming, the rural, farming heritage of Orange County will continue to be preserved and pressure to sell farmland for conversion to residential uses may be lessened. Completion of the ASE project is identified in the County’s adopted Agricultural Development and Farmland Protection Plan (available at: http://orangecountync.gov/ercd/documents/farmland%20protection/Orange%20County%20ADF PP%20Adopted%2011-17-09.pdf) as an important step in continuing the economic viability of farming in Orange County. As noted above, the actual UDO text amendments that would allow appropriate agricultural support uses in the Rural Buffer are not the topic of this public hearing. However, it is pertinent to note that the UDO text amendments propose very few additional uses as “permitted outright” in the Rural Buffer and these uses are of a small scale, low impact nature and must conform to use-specific standards in addition to the development standards Orange County requires for all development projects. Larger ASE uses or those with a greater possibility of adverse impacts would be permitted only through a Special Use Permit or Conditional Zoning process. These processes allow consideration of uses on a site-specific, case-by-case basis after a public hearing conducted by the County with the Board of County Commissioners making the final approval or denial decision. These County processes are similar to the conditional use permit processes the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro use when reviewing development applications. As per the Joint Planning Agreement, all projects within the Rural Buffer are sent to Town planning staffs for review and comment. The Rural Buffer is divided into either Carrboro or Chapel Hill review areas with a small geographic area being reviewed by the staffs of both Towns (see map at: http://orangecountync.gov/planning/documents/JPAReviewAreas.pdf). The pages in the attachment contain the necessary amendments to the Joint Planning Land Use Plan and Agreement to allow for the possibility of locating appropriate ASE uses in the Rural Buffer. The ASE-related changes are shown in blue text. In instances where there is overlap between the ASE-related changes and the changes proposed in a separate item on the Joint Public Hearing agenda, the changes proposed in the separate item are shown in red text. This differentiation was done in order to be clearer in sentences of the plan/agreement where overlap occurs. 33 154