Agenda - 10-15-2024; 8-a - Minutes

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20 1 A motion was made by Commissioner Fowler, seconded by Commissioner Hamilton, to 2 open the public hearing. 3 4 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 5 6 PUBLIC COMMENTS: 7 There was no one signed up to speak. 8 9 A motion was made by Commissioner Fowler, seconded by Commissioner McKee, to 10 close the public hearing. 11 12 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 13 14 Chair Bedford clarified that any decision tonight is completely independent of any future 15 decision on an application and independent of any possible future conservation easement. She 16 said this is also the first use of tying the Strategic Plan to an agenda item. She said that is 17 something they want to do in the future. She said that considering it was environmental protection, 18 any development really is not better for the environment. She said this could also be tied 19 negatively to housing goals because the number is reduced. She said they need to think about 20 which Strategic Plan goals will be used and she asked that staff be thinking about this going 21 forward with other items. She said she plans to support this request. She said she was surprised 22 to see the length of consistencies and she expressed concern with future adversarial issues due 23 to long explanations of consistency from staff. She said if the Board did not support this, there 24 would be four pages that the Board would have to argue over. She said she emailed John Roberts 25 and Cy Stober and asked if they could remove some items to shorten the portion. She said that 26 tonight is not especially important but, in the future, she wants to avoid adversarial issues between 27 the Board. 28 Commissioner Richards asked about the recommendations from the NC Department of 29 Wildlife and what happens to those now. 30 Cy Stober, Planning and Inspections Director said there are requirements in the ordinance 31 around open space. He said that all input will be gathered during future flexible subdivision 32 processes. He said it is standard practice to collect the comments from the county and the State 33 around the value of property from different perspectives. He said that it is standard to provide that 34 information. He said that they are vacating a site-specific plan and there is a loss of control 35 however, conditions cannot be placed upon the approval. He said that the county has done a 36 good job of identifying those values in the ordinance and they can be regulated and accounted 37 for there. 38 Commissioner Richards asked if there is anything in the wildlife recommendations outside 39 of what the county ordinance includes. 40 Cy Stober said there are identifications of bottomland hardwood forests or floodplains that 41 are either already protected or are of low value. He said that when they identify high value areas 42 as natural heritage areas, primary resource areas, and places of cultural significance. He said 43 they can protect those proactively. He said that they confer with DEAPR on the high-level areas. 44 Commissioner Richards said she looked at this through an environmental lens because 45 of its location in a watershed protection area. She asked if the recommendations would go onto 46 the shelf until a future application is brought to the Board. 47 Patrick Mallett said that processes like these go through the state clearinghouse and 48 usually issue statements that are the bare minimum at the state level. He said that floodplain 49 standards for the state are far less than what Orange County requires. He said that the county's 50 standards would apply to this parcel.