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2 <br />1 <br />2 Maycr Foy noted that this requires a special use permit from the Town of Chapel <br />3 Hill. This is a zone that the Town created in order to encourage affordable <br />4 housing,. <br />5 <br />6 Orange County Planning Director Craig Benedict said that the preparation of this <br />7 agenda is a joint effort from the Planning staffs of Orange Ccunty, Chapel HiII, <br />8 and Carrboro. The two rezonings are part of the Chapel Hill Transition Area, <br />9 which is only a joint review by the Town of Chapel Hill and Orange County. <br />10 <br />11 Chapel Hill Planning Director Roger Waldon gave the presentation. He showed <br />12 a map of the joint planning area. The area to the northwest of the Chapel Hill city <br />1.3 limits is the Chapel Hill Transition Area. This means that Chapel Hill does not <br />14 exercise unilateral zoning jurisdicticn over this; it is shared with Orange County <br />15 and Carrboro. Any proposed rezoning is a matter that has to be considered by <br />16 the Chapel HiII Tawn Council and the Orange County Board of Commissioners <br />17 and requires affirmative action by both bodies. Both of the applications tonight <br />18 are in the transition area, both of the applicants are seeking rezoning, and in both <br />19 cases the rezoning would have to be approved by the Chapel Hill Town Council <br />20 and the Orange County Board of Commissioners.. <br />21 <br />22 The first rezoning is Rusch Hollow. The current zoning is Residential 1. The <br />2.3 proposed rezoning is to a zoning district called Residential Special Standards. <br />24 This was put in place by Chapel Hill to help facilitate affordable housing. The <br />25 area is about three acres, The staffs conclusicn is that this rezoning would <br />26 promote the purposes of the land use plan.. The preliminary recommendation is <br />27 that the two bodies consider approval of this application for rezoning. <br />28 <br />29 PUBLIC CnMMENT: <br />30 <br />31 Executive Director of Habitat far Humanity Susan Levy spoke as the applicant. <br />32 She spoke about the increase in the number of applicants that Habitat has had. <br />3.3 They usually get about 30 applications during an application session, and during <br />34 the last one they received over 60 applications. Many of the applicants currently <br />35 live in Chapel Hill or Carrboro. Habitat is interested in this site because it is <br />36 within the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district. Over 35 of the applicants also <br />.37 work in Chapel Hill or Carrboro (schools, IJNC, UNC Hospitals, local restaurants <br />38 and retail, private health care, light manufacturing, and construction). If this <br />39 rezoning request is approved, Rusch Hollow will serve 17 households who earn <br />40 less than 50% of the area median income. <br />41 <br />42 One of the families that will live in this subdivisicn is the Rogers family, whc has <br />43 been waiting for two years to move into affordable housing. They started <br />44 planning this development well over two years ago and they have not heard from <br />45 anyone opposed to Rusch Hollow from the community meetings. They will bring <br />46 sewer lines to this area and the sewer will have a positive effect on the future of <br />47 affordable housing. Habitat has received allocations of public funding from a <br />48 variety of sources in order to support the construction of this neighborhood. To <br />49 date, they have a commitment for $497,000 in public funds for the purchase of <br />50 the land and the construction. Habitat will raise about twice this amount in <br />51 private sources to fund the rest of the development. There will be 12 single- <br />