APB Meeting Summary 05152024 - Laserfiche WebLink

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3 farmland preservation options need to provide farmers with essentially the same per acre price that a developer would pay. He serves on the Tri-Cog (17 county region), which obtained grants of$375k to study and identify infrastructure needs required to grow the markets to expand local food systems to support local farming and improve profitability. The regional market is a huge opportunity but will require improved and coordinated aggregation and distribution, so that counties are working together and not competing with each other. b. Update on work of the Whole Orange Committee: Staff reported on behalf of Hughes who couldn't join us tonight. This is an informal assembly of local community leaders to create a working group to assess and address the broad issue of sprawl, which includes a focus on farmland preservation. They are meeting on a regular basis. Cy Stober, the county planning director, provided them with a presentation at their last meeting to share the latest update from the consultants for our land use planning update process. Staff shared the most recent land use plan presentation with members, highlighting the key areas of interest to the APB. Community engagement and participation is still lower than desired so that continues to be an issue. Farmland preservation is emerging as an important part of the overall set of goals, competing with things like affordable housing, homelessness, energy efficiency/carbon reduction, transportation etc. The consultants have created scenarios and maps showing what the county will look like depending on what the final plan includes, ranging from very protective approaches to farmland with things like cluster development and conservation development, to how it would look with no change and continued sprawl. Given the projected population growth, we will have to accept that there will be a lot more housing needed—so it will be a matter of how and where. A key issue will be the essential community services of water and sewer. The county commissioners wish to balance all these needs while keeping in mind all the real-world issues. Our input will continue to be critical. We'll have to respond quickly at each stage to ensure that our goals will get incorporated into the final plan. 8. Time for Information Sharing: Wagger shared the recent article about the Cedar Grove Law Firm, featured in the News of Orange. Staff reported on a recent planning application by a major national developer for a new subdivision on 63 acres on NC 54 in White Cross, which will contain 41 houses. This is a typical example of the standard sprawl approach now happening across the county, with 1 acre lots. Around half of this farm is prime farmland. There isn't any active farming taking place there now. Compton described his current challenge of getting a building permit for a new pole barn needed at Cedar Ridge High School. 9. Adjournment: Vice Chair Sykes adjourned the meeting at 8:13 pm.