Agenda - 01-21-2003-9c - Laserfiche WebLink

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PROPOSED POLICY FOR LAND BANKING SUMMARY OF PUBLIC COMMENTS 1. General Comment, no action required: From Susan Levy, " ... Overall, I think the proposed policy is excellent....... Please let me know when this is to go before the County Commissioners for their approval. Thanks for the work in putting together this proposed policy." 2. Re: Project Completion: Procedural Assumption #2 states that "The Land Banking Policy will be incorporated into the Orange County Housing Bond Policy document and Land Banking project proposals will be subject to the same requirements regarding ... Project Completion, ...." The project completion requirement states "All New Construction program activities should begin within three years of funding award. Any requests for time extensions will be granted at the discretion of the Board of County Commissioners and must be submitted at least six months prior to the deadline date." Both Dowling and Levy think this time requirement is to short. Dowling states, " You might want to consider how we are defining `land banking'. With this scoring criteria it seems the land won't be in the bank very long - more short term CD than medium term T-note." Levy is more specific. She states " ... I think the requirement that construction begin within three years of the funding award somewhat defeats the concept of landbanking, in which the idea is to take a property off the market so it can be reserved for future affordable housing development. There will be projects that can meet this time line, but there may be other instances where the land is available now, and won't be in the future, but there is not the funding and/or capacity among non-profit developers to begin what can be a very lengthy (and costly) process to actually develop the property. With the proposed Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, the proposed new land management ordinance for the Town of Chapel Hill, and any other future changes that local governments may make that affect the development process, three years could be an unrealistic timeframe to get through the development process, especially for a larger tract. I would argue for a five year time frame, rather than three, with the flexibility to make exceptions for a longer time frame when a piece of land is desirable, but there is not an immediate necessity or ability to develop it." Ad hoc committee response: No specific recommendation. Since the allocations for landbanking is only 20% of funds available, a longer time frame may be acceptable. However, this may be a point best left for the BOCC to decide. AHAB ACTION: Leave as is. 3. Re: threshold requirements #7: The current proposal states that applicant must "include a detailed project schedule for bringing the project on-line, including critical next steps and a plan for the management of the land until construction begins." Dowling remarks that this "could involve a great deal of work; and possibly time and money. An applicant may not have a development plan in place yet. The next steps might simply be to