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Orange County Department of Environment, Agriculture, Parks & Recreation <br />PO Box 8181, Hillsborough, NC 27278 <br />Phone: (919) 245-2510 <br />As shown on Attachment 1, the property which you now own includes a cellular <br />transmission tower that to our understanding is still owned by Crown Castle, Inc. <br /> <br />Since that property is landlocked, an access easement was recorded for the cell <br />tower with the previous owner of the County’s future park site, which now runs <br />with the County’s land. This easement has for the last 20 years consisted of a <br />rudimentary unpaved path that runs east along and through the County’s future <br />park site to your 10-acre parcel with the cell tower. <br /> <br />As mentioned in our meeting, our concerns with transforming this rudimentary <br />access easement into a commercial driveway with regular traffic poses significant <br />problems for the County’s future soccer center site. I should note that these <br />concerns come from the County as impacted adjacent landowner, and are not <br />part of any comments on the impacts of the rezoning proposal on natural and <br />cultural resources that our Department of Environment, Agriculture, Parks and <br />Recreation (DEAPR) makes as part of the normal development review process: <br /> <br />1. The current unpaved access easement, if improved, would sever access <br />to 20 acres of the 79-acre future park site that lies south of the existing <br />access easement. To date, the few trips per year by Crown Castle to visit <br />the cellular tower and the fact that the future park has not yet been <br />constructed has not posed an issue for this separation of the property. <br />However, if a commercial driveway were constructed on top of this <br />easement in its current location, this would change things substantially. <br />2. The creation of a commercial driveway with a projected 300 trips per day <br />in this location will create safety and access problems for the Millhouse <br />Road Park site. It is likely that parking and soccer fields would be located <br />across this driveway, with parents and children crossing back and forth <br />across it to access vehicles or other fields. We have serious concerns <br />about the safety of future users of the facility, especially small children, if <br />such a driveway separated the facility. <br />3. The change to a commercial driveway in this easement location would <br />impair the County’s ability to use its property for its intended purpose. <br /> <br />Having said this, as we discussed in our meeting, the County would be amenable <br />to relocating the access easement to minimize the severing of any of the future <br />soccer complex by a potential future driveway. The current adopted Capital <br />Investment Plan for construction of the Millhouse Road facility would find design <br />and engineering in FY 2027-28 and construction of the facility (with the Town of <br />Chapel Hill) in FY 2028-29. <br /> <br />In our previous discussion, you mentioned the potential for allowing the current <br />access easement to serve as your commercial driveway in this proposal, with <br />relocation of the driveway and access to a new location timed to occur with the <br />construction of the Millhouse Road Park facility. <br /> <br />131