Orange County NC Website
Citizen Plan #3 for Twin Creeks Park /School Campus 30 <br />Analysis of Citizen Plan #3 <br />(Feature <br />Analysis <br />Neighborhood schools as <br />Puts the combined elementary /middle school within 1.5 mile of 500 <br />community centers <br />homes of Lake Hogan Farm, and future possible homes to the east and <br />south- east. School system will not have to provide bussing within these <br />developments. After - school use will not require bus /auto use for local <br />residents. Walking/biking to school both during and after school will <br />occur more frequently. <br />Road use and construction <br />Allows phase 1 park facilities to be immediately accessible from <br />Eubanks Rd with minimal or no new road construction. The east -west <br />access road from Old NC 86 would need to be completed in conjunction <br />with the first school construction, but it is already planned for the <br />Harmony Famis development. Automobile traffic within the site is not <br />increased. Vehicular miles traveled are reduced due to about 100 -200 <br />students and other neighborhood residents potentially walking/biking to <br />the school/gym /park site on a daily basis. <br />Local use of school / park <br />This plan puts the park playing fields farther from Lake Hogan Farm <br />facilities <br />development, but these fields are intended for county -wide use, and will <br />be intensively scheduled for use on a county -wide basis, not generally <br />available for casual use. The school playing fields will be closer to the <br />homes, and are open for casual use when not in use by middle school <br />teams. The proposed corm urnity gym is also now within walking <br />distance of homes. Young families prefer to use a playground near a <br />neighborhood school. <br />Utility costs <br />The ES /MS site is the major user of water /sewer utilities. Placing it <br />immediately adjacent to Lake Hogan Farm development possibly saves a <br />couple of hundred thousand dollars by shortening the distance sewer <br />would be extended. Costs for water are unclear and need OWASA effort <br />to estimate, but will not be higher than the county plans. Daylighting of <br />the schools requires the corridors in east -west axis, resulting in lower <br />power consumption. <br />Topography <br />Only land already designated for clearing and grading, about one - quarter <br />of the acreage of the site, is affected by the revision proposed in Citizen <br />Plan #3. This land is already flat enough to build fields and schools <br />without undue cost. This land was chosen for intensive development by <br />the CHATPEC working group because it had historically been used as <br />farmland, and no old- growth forest was affected. <br />City growth planning <br />The wetlands to the north and the Duke Forest property to the north and <br />east of Twin Creeks make future residential development unlikely in <br />those areas. Placing a neighborhood school adjacent to those features has <br />no benefit. Land to the east - southeast is currently lightly undeveloped, in <br />private hands, and could become a mixed -use development in the future. <br />11/29/2004 Page 3 of 6 <br />