1-3-24 PB Agenda Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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ten acres. Through recent personal communications, Josh Kirshner, the owner of this address, has no objection to our rezoning plans and foresees no conflicts. Our 10-acre lot also includes within it a 195 foot tall telecommunication tower, surrounded by its auxiliary utilities and chain link fencing for which the telecom tower owner must have perpetual access. While this permanent feature of the parcel limits its viability for other uses, 18 it is not a problem for our purposes. Our added security, as well as our improvements to and our maintenance of the access road, will only benefit the tower owners and maintenance teams. Permitting the rezoning of our ten-acre parcel not only avoids creating conflicts with adjacent properties and property owners, but it is also a step towards preventing future conflicts. Our parcel is currently zoned RB, and looking down the Table of Permitted Uses it is difficult to find a use for the ten acres which is less likely to lead to some future conflict with one or more of the adjacent properties or property owners. In so allowing our plans to move forward, the County thereby makes progress on the following goals and objectives: ●LU Goal 3: A variety of land uses that are coordinated within a program and pattern that limits sprawl, preserves community and rural character, minimizes land use conflicts, supported by an efficient and balanced transportation system. ●LU Goal 2: Land uses that are appropriate to on-site environmental conditions and features, and that protect natural resources, cultural resources, and community character. The Comprehensive Plan mentions the viability of agriculture and forestry and their respective lands (Natural & Cultural Systems Goal 2). In permitting us to pursue our plans, the County thereby protects Duke Forest from alternative uses of this ten-acre parcel which, although possibly permitted in the RB, could lead to “incompatible adjacent land uses or activities that will adversely affect the long term…investments” of Duke Forest (see Objective AG-1). Likewise, in precluding alternative uses of our ten-acre parcel, the county would thereby “minimize the incidence of complaints and nuisance suits” against Duke Forest (consider their prescribed burns), Orange County’s landfill (recall all the complaints of the Rogers Road community), and potentially even the County’s future recreational facilities (see Objective LU-3.4). 18 We have learned from Duke Forest Supervisor Tom Craven that Duke Forest passed on an opportunity to purchase this parcel from the prior owner because of the restrictive details of the lease with the telecom tower owner. Clearly it wasn’t for the price tag that Duke Forest found this ten acres undesirable. Around the same time Duke Forest purchased the nearby 27.5 acre Meadow Flats parcel for $2.5 million, well over four times the assessed tax value of that land. In 2019 the previous owner of our ten acre parcel attempted, apparently without success, to donate the entire lot to Orange County. 18 35