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14 <br /> Viif <br /> Hands Four Development Cooperative <br /> ehead PO Box 1201 Carrboro,NC 27510 <br /> HandsFourDevelopment@gmail.com <br /> Zoning Atlas Amendment Narrative - Fiddlehead Corner <br /> March 20, 2024 <br /> The applicant, Hands Four Development Cooperative (H4D), proposes the creation of a <br /> Master Plan Development Conditional District (MPD-CD) at the intersection of Morrow Mill <br /> Road and Gold Mine Loop in southwest Orange County. The 90 acre extent of the property is <br /> a single parcel lying within two land use classifications, Agricultural Residential (AR) and <br /> Rural Neighborhood Activity Node (RNAN), the latter in the northernmost portion of the <br /> property. <br /> The zoning change requested in this application is from AR to MPD-CD for the entire 90 acre <br /> parcel. Two associated changes in the 2030 Orange County Comprehensive Plan / Future <br /> Land Use Map (FLUM) are requested in separate applications: a) FLUM Map Amendment to <br /> classify the land use of the entire 90 acres as Rural Neighborhood Activity Node and b) <br /> linkage of MPD-CD and RNAN in the Zoning Matrix of Appendix F of the Comprehensive <br /> Plan. Also requested is a UDO text amendment to the MPD-CD Development Standard to <br /> designate RNAN as a permitted location for an MPD-CD. <br /> An adjacent parcel of 35 acres now owned by Thomas Cheek was part of the original 125 <br /> acre property he owned from which the H4D parcel was created. An existing vineyard and <br /> house will remain on the Cheek land. Up to five additional house sites will be developed with <br /> conventional individual wells and septic systems. His intended uses would remain consistent <br /> with Agricultural Residential zoning. H4D has a 25 year right-of-first-refusal on sale of all, or <br /> portions of, the Cheek property. <br /> The H4D property will be home to Fiddlehead Corner, a community oriented toward older <br /> adults. The changing conditions that make this rezoning reasonably necessary are 1) the <br /> increasing demand for senior housing in Orange County, 2) the advantages of scale to make <br /> such a community financially viable and 3) the rapid disappearance of suitable land for such a <br /> community in urban Orange County. <br /> Regarding demand for senior housing, Orange County is undergoing "an explosion in the <br /> numbers of older persons, a dramatic increase in longer lives" as described in the Orange <br /> County Master Aging Plan (MAP) of 2007. The most recent update of the MAP, (2022-27), <br /> reinforces this point with an estimate that, while the overall population will increase by 20% <br /> from 2020 to 2040, the number of adults ages 65+ in Orange County is expected to increase <br /> over three times as fast - 68%! <br />