Agenda - 02-28-2005-c1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Attachment 2 Agricultural Services — Conditional District Rezoning Overview Existing Conditions The Orange County Zoning Ordinance currently outlines a process to rezone property from Agricultural Residential (AR) to Agricultural Services (AS) as a way to support the rural community. Like high - density residential districts, the AS district is a floating zoning district; it is defined in the ordinance, but is not applied to specific parcels until requested by a property owner. A landowner may currently apply to have property rezoned from AR to AS using a general rezoning process. If the rezoning application is approved, the landowner may use his or her property for any of the land uses allowed in the AS District. Challenge The general rezoning process works effectively in many situations. Two common scenarios are when a property is rezoned from a low- density residential zoning district to higher density residential district or when a property is rezoned from a residential use to a commercial or business use. In the second example, once the property is rezoned the parcel takes on a commercial character, and all of the uses permitted in the commercial zoning district are available to that parcel. Applying the general rezoning process to the Agricultural Services floating district is challenging because so much of the county is zoned Agricultural Residential even though the character of the county's rural communities varies substantially. Some uses may be appropriate in one area but not in another. New Planning Construct Many of the agricultural uses outlined in the Rural Enterprises proposal are commercial in character: farm machinery repair, feed mills, horse supply and tack shop, etc. All of these uses belong in the rural parts of the county, areas that are traditionally zoned residential. Staff is recommending a new mechanism to allow some of these uses to be permitted in the rural portions of the residential zoning districts (Agricultural Residential (AR), Rural Residential (R1), and the Rural Buffer (RB)), using what is called Conditional District Zoning. Unlike general zoning, conditional district rezoning may only be used for a specific land use or uses, For example, a property owner would request that his /her parcel be rezoned for a feed store, and would provide a schematic site plan of what the feed store would look like and how it would be designed on the site. Should the request be approved, the property owner could develop the feed store and use the property for that purpose but no other use. Rezonings are legislative decisions. All rezoning applications — whether conventional or conditional district — would be reviewed by the BOCC through the quarterly public hearing process. Using the conditional district approach, the Board could allow some agriculturally - based commercial ventures to occur in the rural parts of the county, based on the suitability of the use to the particular community. A winery might make sense in Bingham Township but not in Cedar Grove Township, for example. Conditional district zoning is already used in some North Carolina jurisdictions Charlotte/ Mecklenburg provides landowners with two rezoning options — conventional rezoning or conditional district rezoning. As shown in Attachment #3, the options have different application requirements and different processes The conditional district zoning process allows particular uses to be established, but only in accordance with specific standards and conditions pertaining to each individual development project.