Agenda - 03-11-2025; 2 - Consultant Presentation on Draft Orange County Land Use Plan 2050

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24 The American Planning Association defines sustainable development as,"development that maintains or enhances economic opportunity and community well-being while protecting and restoring the natural environment upon which people and economies depend" Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Often termed the"triple bottom line,"sustainable growth can be achieved in Orange County by balancing environmental, social,and economic factors. When evaluating the best land use practices to achieve sustainable development, planners look to a key resource published by the American Planning Association,the Urban Land Institute,and the Smart Growth Network called "Best Development Practices:A Primer for Smart Growth" by Reid Ewing and Robert Hodder.The policy guidance provided in the Orange County Land Use Plan 2050 integrates the following best practices from this resource: Mix land uses and concentrate development. Keep vehicle miles of travel(VMT)below the area average. Contribute to the area's jobs-housing balance. Include civic uses in mixed use areas. Promote smaller areas of clustered development patterns. Place higher density housing near commercial centers,transit lines,and parks. Phase convenience shopping and recreational opportunities to keep pace with housing. Make subdivisions into neighborhoods with well-defined centers and edges. Concentrate commercial development in compact centers. Make shopping centers and business parks into all-purpose activity centers. Tame auto-oriented land uses or at least separate them from pedestrian-oriented uses (such as sidewalks and greenways). The reservation of school sites has been omitted from the above list,as an illegal practice in North Carolina. Sustainable development can include efforts to tame sprawl in a community,which often takes the form of an unplanned,uncontrolled,and uncoordinated single-use development that does not provide for an attractive and functional mix of uses and/or is not functionally related to surrounding land uses. Rural sprawl is primarily characterized as low-density residential land use patterns that are car-dependent,and energy and land consumptive. Because of their focus on single-family housing,such land uses can decrease housing choices and contribute to an unbalanced government tax base. An example of a rural sprawl development pattern are two-acre lot estates.While these development patterns do maintain some level of natural features on a site,they ultimately fragment the landscape by increasing impervious surfaces that affect drainage and stormwater patterns and break up habitat corridors and hubs that serve various species.Also noteworthy,the conversion of agricultural land to low-density residential uses(sprawl) is one of the primary drivers of farmland loss in Orange County(and across the United States). Achieving this concept of sustainable development that reduces rural sprawl and protects natural areas and working lands is the central objective of this Land Use Plan.