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Detailed Narrative <br />How the proposed amendment is consistent with, or carries out the intent and <br />purpose of the adopted Orange County Comprehensive Plan , or part thereof <br />Well over half of Orange County’s population is clustered within the Towns of Chapel Hill and <br />Carrboro.1 It is within these towns where we find the County’s most significant tree-related <br />challenges and needs. These include <br />●the increasingly disruptive noise pollution created by industrial tree processing <br />equipment, <br />●the countless tons of wasted natural resources from tree maintenance and tree removal <br />services, <br />●the rising costs of tree ownership compromising the goals of flourishing and equitable <br />canopy coverage, <br />●the challenge of attracting, training, and providing local jobs to highly skilled arborists, <br />●the need to increase tree and tree-care literacy among local property owners, and <br />●the challenge of providing responsive emergency tree services to south Orange County <br />population centers. <br />We, at the Treeist, are uniquely positioned to help meet these needs, but we have outgrown <br />our current headquarters at the outskirts of Carrboro. We have therefore purchased an ideally <br />located 10-acre parcel off Millhouse Road, bordering the county landfill. Although located <br />within the Rural Buffer, the requisite rezoning of this parcel is congruent with the neighboring <br />parcels and with the County’s development directives. Observing how the Treeist’s track record <br />and future aspirations align with the County’s own mandated goals and objectives, we argue <br />that fidelity to the 2030 Comprehensive Plan favors our rezoning needs. <br />1. Noise Pollution <br />The Orange County Comprehensive Plan aims to preserve and promote the tranquility of our <br />neighborhoods by restricting operations that create noise and dust, such as the wood <br />processing operations of sawmills and mulch grinders. While well-intentioned, these inflexible <br />zoning restrictions actually have the effect of bringing the noise of wood processing directly into <br />our neighborhoods. <br />1 Comprehensive Plan, p. 5-21: The “population is not evenly distributed throughout the County. Density is <br />focused in the southern section of the County with fifty-seven percent of the population residing within the <br />Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro.” <br />1 <br />18