2.7.24 Planning Board Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Approved 3-6-24 199 and how can we address while we're still in the process and not at the end go, `bops, you know, we didn't have 200 an opportunity." 201 202 Leigh Anne King: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. So Emily mentioned there's some specific groups 203 that we identified from the data that we were not getting the representation in terms of the participation and so 204 1 think now that we know that we do have, Tate will continue to do, they continue to have some a role in the 205 community engagement in this next window where they can maybe be a little more targeted to some very 206 specific groups. So the database I think had over 200 different contacts. I think there were a lot to connect 207 with, which is great to have that many groups and organizations and businesses in the County to reach out to. 208 It also makes it a little difficult to have personal conversations with all of them. But I think that now we can kind 209 of narrow that down a little bit more and have some more targeted discussions and maybe push a little bit 210 harder to have those discussions so that we can make sure that those different community groups are 211 represented in the second round of engagement. 212 213 Chris Johnston: Last comment, Cy, have you all looked into how the Health Department can be a place to 214 contact the more diverse communities and populations? 215 216 Cy Stober: We have not. That's very constructive feedback, thank you. 217 218 Whitney Watson: I have two questions. One is if Clarion can drill down a little bit through the kind of 219 economic development options that might be developed. So, it's one thing to sort of go, "we'd like to see 220 renewable energy." I don't know what that really means. Does it mean a lithium mine like out by Charlotte or 221 does it mean something else? It would be nice to know what people think those different kind of job categories 222 would be. And along with that, what education requirements there might be as well as transportation and 223 training? And then my other question has to do with drilling into what people think about or the community 224 thinks about affordable housing. Maybe it's great to say, "we would love ADUs or tiny home villages 225 everywhere, but not in my backyard." So perhaps presenting some alternatives in one of these engagement 226 sessions might help people tease out what they really mean about that. 227 228 Leigh Anne King: On the economic development-related land uses, I think that it's a good question. I would 229 be very surprised if a mine would be supported by this community. But I could be wrong. I think that what we 230 want to do with the land use scenarios that we're going to be testing in the fall is to start to, like you're saying, 231 drill down a little more specifically, particularly looking in the economic development districts and potentially 232 other places, if that's where this drives us to. What are the types of land uses that should be accommodated 233 within those areas? What types of employment are we wanting to support? I think that's important. We have 234 the Economic Development Commission and staff representation as part of the staff working group that are 235 helping us to kind of understand what their goals are, what they're working on. I think we might not have a 236 specific piece of feedback that was shared in this but one of the pieces of feedback we received in the 237 community engagement is there's an interest in small businesses and local businesses in particular. One of 238 the questions I have as a consultant kind of thinking about this stuff is not to say that that's not a good thing to 239 support, but what are the, in Orange County, generally speaking, what are the wages that those employees 240 make and are those wages that would actually allow people to kind of both live and work in this community? 241 It's an important question to consider. If we are, if one of our goals is to try to reduce the amount of people 242 that are working elsewhere and driving in every day or cross-commuting. So, I think that that's definitely 243 something, I don't have an answer to your question about what those land uses will be. But I think that's 244 something that we're going to be working through as part of those land use scenarios. You know, solar farms, 245 that's one that a lot of communities are looking at. Is that a type of use that we want to be supporting and 246 where does that make the most sense? 247