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PRELIMINARY REPORT OF THE STONEY CREEK IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES SUBCOMMITTEE Members: Curtis Bane, Renee Price, Lee Rafalow, Elio Soldi, and Dan Teichman Two key themes have guided development of the draft Stoney Creek Small Area Plan. These are, first, that it is important to retain elements of the present rural character for the area and second, that property owners should receive fair value for their land should they choose to sell or develop it in some way. The draft plan reflects a substantial commitment of time, resources, and efforts at consensus building by the Stoney Creek Planning Group. As stated in the Joint Planning Area Land Use Plan, "The success of the planning activity, however, is dependent on the degree to which public and private development actions and decisions are coordinated since the Plan is not 'self- executing. "' While a range of legal options are available for plan implementation (see Appendix A for overview) , the zoning ordinance has traditionally been the major tool for implementing land use plans in Orange County, and elsewhere. It serves as the means to achieve the desired relationship between land uses; to prevent incompatible land use associations; and to encourage and provide incentives for the more compact and efficient land use patterns delineated in the plan. Simply stated, zoning is the division of a jurisdiction into different districts and the regulation within those districts of land uses, density of population, intensity of the use of buildings and land, and lot coverage and required setbacks. An example of a plan recommendation being transformed into reality by zoning is the implementation of the Rural Buffer zoning district in January 1987. The Rural Buffer is a 38,000 acre area composed of the New Hope Creek drainage basin and University Lake Watershed lying to the north and west of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. To hel -p- -keep the area rural and limit urban sprawl, the Joint Planning Area Land Use Plan recommended that future development occur on larger lots. Required minimum lot sizes for residential development were increased from 0.92 acre (40,000 square feet) to two acres (87,120 square feet). While helping achieve plan goals, critics of the Rural Buffer rezoning claimed that it was a "downzoning" and that it adversely impacted the property rights and property values of land owners. A recommendation of the draft Stoney Creek Small Area Plan is the creation of higher, intermediate, and lower land use intensity areas. The most expedient way to implement the plan recommendations would be to amend the zoning ordinance to create higher, intermediate, and lower intensity districts with required 1