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Hill parcels along Millhouse Rd for which there has been some discussion of development into storage facilities. 2 The new road would add some 55,000 square feet of impervious surface, creating another crossing over Old Field Creek and through its riparian buffer, through what has been identified as an important wildlife corridor. Uncertain Value due to Uncertain Plans These considerable costs, both financial and environmental, would be of value only if two yet-uncertain things come to pass: the County must bring about its yet-to-be designed development, and the location of the current access road must turn out to be problematic for that development. The value gained from the considerable road-building costs is therefore speculative. The County has owned the bulk of the property since 2004, with the purchase of all of these neighboring parcels as part of its Lands Legacy Program. The purpose and mission of this program is to “protect and conserve the county’s most important natural and cultural resource lands before they are damaged or destroyed.” Under this program, these particular parcels were purchased in order to serve as a “Future park with farmstead and natural heritage area.” Over the last twenty years, the County’s plans for these lands have changed but the land remained undeveloped. By 2014, the County published its aims to develop the land into “lighted playing fields” and to possibly include an indoor recreation center (Parks and Recreation Master Plan, 3-22). In 2018, the County was looking into investigating its options for rezoning these parcels to Home Park Conditional Zoning (HP-CZ) to allow for a 34-unit mobile home park to expand affordable housing (see BOCC meetings here, and here, and the feasibility study here).3 My understanding is that the County currently has aspirations to build as many of eight soccer fields,4 ideally with artificial turf, lighting, parking and associated amenities. The Special Use Permit for this project has yet to be obtained. By the County’s own projected timelines we are still years away from seeing engineering and design proposals for the project. Should the County’s plans materialize in the next five years as hoped for, it is yet further speculation that the soccer complex will be designed in such a way that our current access road would be an encumbrance. It would be unreasonable for the County to require us to presently abandon our current access easement road and, at our own expense, construct a new one based on the speculation that this might later prove valuable for the County. The financial cost would be unfair to us and the 4 I believe eight soccer fields was the number Mr. Stancil mentioned during our online meeting. My memory could be mistaken; possibly he mentioned only six fields. 3 In 2019, the County had the opportunity to also obtain through donation the 10-acre parcel that I later purchased. At this time one of County’s stated reasons for pursuing this donation was to provide itself with “greater authority to work with the cell tower company if changes become needed to the access easement.” For reasons the County will not disclose, that transaction fell through, and when the parcel was put on sale in 2021 I can find no record of the County attempting to purchase it. 2 From email correspondence with Katie Bowden, Economic Development Manager, Town of Chapel Hill, July 10, 2023. 3 135