Minutes 04-30-2024 - Work Session

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16 Vice-Chair Greene said that is how she understands it but referenced slide 28 and said if that the answer shown is confusing to the reader if it is answering the question that is posed. Leigh Anne King said the other two alternatives do offer affordable housing in the county and that is one of the things they want to get feedback on. She said the question they have for the Board is if they want affordable housing in the county's jurisdiction or the county supporting efforts for those to be located within the municipalities. Vice-Chair Greene said that if there are four scenarios, scenarios 1 and 2 are confusing. Chair Bedford said they would want that for all of Orange County versus just the unincorporated part. She said they want to think big picture for all of the county. Leigh Anne King said they would be building off of total county statistics and off projections in the metropolitan transportation planning exercise that gets updated every five years. She said the reason this question shows unincorporated is because they are trying to be clear because they are testing what the county could do differently policy-wise in the areas that they have planning and zoning jurisdiction. Cy Stober said the scenarios will evaluate if the land use addresses affordable housing or not. He said it will show the potential to serve that need or not. He said that the land use plan will show whether the needs are being met or will need to be met in the municipalities. He said in terms of the language, they would take their thoughts under consideration. Commissioner Fowler asked if they mean housing that is more affordable for everyone, or do they mean affordable for lower income. Cy Stober said he would review the responses from the Strategic Plan to confirm. Vice-Chair Greene said that at the community sessions, people would say that they wanted more affordable housing. Commissioner Fowler said it is critical to clarify what affordable housing means before they take action. Commissioner Portie-Ascott said it would be important to define affordable housing, because her impression was, they were trying to address the issue of people driving each day to work in Orange County. Leigh Anne King said they take the land use planning focus to the work and when they think about affordable housing, they are thinking about what that would look like by types of developments that would support various income levels. Commissioner Richards said that in every community survey they have done, this issue has come up to the top. She said she understood that the "influencers" in the study were the things that the community has highlighted as important issues. She confirmed that the scenarios would be put together, and that Clarion would get feedback. Leigh Anne King said they are not presented as answers but as various options and there will be questions asked about what is liked and not liked in all alternatives. Commissioner Richards said that feedback from all four of the alternatives would be the basis of the development for the then recommended plan. Leigh Anne King said it is a safe, hypothetical way to test out options for policy direction. Commissioner Richards asked if the questions were already phrased or if Clarion was working on that. Leigh Anne King said this would be the overarching question for the process. She said they are trying to figure out what the best balance is for sustainable development in unincorporated Orange County. Commissioner Richards said it could change nothing, or three other alternatives. Leigh Anne King said that it would likely be something slightly different than all four alternatives. She said normally there are key pieces of exploratory scenarios and those come together meaningfully as a comprehensive land use approach.