Orange County NC Website
<br />8 <br /> 377 <br />Tony Blake: So the septic counts in the open space but it’s not owned by the HOA? 378 <br /> 379 <br />Craig Benedict: There may be an HOA requirement for a common maintenance so that they all hire the same 380 <br />person. 381 <br /> 382 <br />Tony Blake: Could be governed by the HOA... 383 <br /> 384 <br />Craig Benedict: ...Or if you had a community well. That could be governed by the HOA. But yet it doesn’t count as 385 <br />open space, but it kind of looks like open space. 386 <br /> 387 <br />Patrick Mallett: Yeah, it’s a bonus in terms of what we get in terms of the open space. And it’s just like a road, the 388 <br />other nice thing is you’re doing off site septic systems that would be a requirement and if you’re doing a subdivision 389 <br />you have to build the road before you can record the lots and it has to be certified. They would have to build the 390 <br />septic systems, the fence around it and then you come in and the homebuilder builds the house and the tank and 391 <br />then you hook the system up. 392 <br /> 393 <br />Tony Blake: One more question. Is there any size… we’re starting to see some of these 5,000 square foot houses 394 <br />out where we are and if they ever caught on fire we wouldn’t be able to put them out. 395 <br /> 396 <br />Patrick Mallett: It’s driven as it is today with any developments, it’s driven by the watershed. If you’re in University 397 <br />Lake you have some pretty stringent impervious limitations. 398 <br /> 399 <br />Craig Benedict: There is not a requirement on the house size. It’s a matter of imperviousness and… They tried that 400 <br />in Florida to dictate house sizes by zoning district and that could not be done. 401 <br /> 402 <br />Curtis Bane: Will the open space be taxed the same as the rest of the development? 403 <br /> 404 <br />Patrick Mallett: Theoretically open space would be held by an association or if they worked collectively to get a 405 <br />conservation easement it would valued at a lesser rate than it would be if you owned 2 acres. If I have a 1-acre lot 406 <br />and the other acre is in the open space. 407 <br /> 408 <br />Curtis Bane: If your open space is trees could you harvest those trees? 409 <br /> 410 <br />Patrick Mallett: Theoretically yes, as you could anywhere in Orange County by state law. 411 <br /> 412 <br />Tony Blake: The HOA could restrict that? 413 <br /> 414 <br />Patrick Mallett: That’s right. They could restrict that. 415 <br /> 416 <br />Craig Benedict: If it was a farm field and they want to forest that, they could do that, but if it’s a native forest and it 417 <br />has some value, near a stream, we’d probably say, “You have to do selective clearing in there.” 418 <br /> 419 <br />Kim Piracci: So you’re here talking to us tonight to get permission to do this? Or to not? 420 <br /> 421 <br />Patrick Mallett: To get a recommendation. 422 <br /> 423 <br />Kim Piracci: Is there an example of this around here? 424 <br /> 425 <br />Craig Benedict: Maybe on a smaller scale, we can show you where we’ve had 33-40% open space and you can 426 <br />see where we’ve preserved stream buffers and trees and things like that and the reason we’re bringing this forward 427 <br />is this is suggesting to cluster down even more. We’ve been limited by 1-acre minimum in rural areas. The density 428 <br />and the lot size are 2 different things. 429 <br /> 430 <br /> 12