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Approved 2.5.25
<br />Hill/Carrboro are both, and the County, have the joint planning agreement area and so the idea 492
<br />was that dense housing would happen within those jointly planned areas where urban, or 493
<br />suburban scale development is already the policy in the place. So, not really additional areas 494
<br />added to those beyond probably the Mebane growth area, but we're still waiting to see what 495
<br />happens with that comprehensive planning effort. 496
<br />Beth Bronson: At least acknowledging, I guess, in the comprehensive plan that the municipalities have their own 497
<br />land use plan. Because as somebody who lives near the I-85 Mebane area, the confusion that 498
<br />was created around the municipality having their growth strategy and the County having their 499
<br />growth strategy, on top of Mebane itself being, straddling two different counties. Besides that, just 500
<br />the idea of the public trying to engage but then not understanding where all of these, they're not 501
<br />contradictory necessarily, but they're not congruent, so. 502
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<br />Leigh Anne King: Yeah. No, that's really important. I know I talked to at least one person when we were in Gravelly 504
<br />Hill that we were encouraging them to go and participate in the Mebane comprehensive planning 505
<br />effort for that very reason because a lot of the things that they wanted to provide feedback on and 506
<br />guidance on was more specific to what Mebane is actually doing in their effort. So, I think it's 507
<br />good to be aware of both, but you're right. Whoever has direct authority is the one you want to be 508
<br />making sure you're getting your comments to. 509
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<br />Statler Gilfillen: You just described sending an individual over to Mebane to talk to them about their planning and 511
<br />what they're doing, separate from what you're doing. Now, I'm looking at the Orange County. I'm 512
<br />looking at each of the municipalities and I'm hearing constantly separate. How much time or effort 513
<br />is where you're meeting with the Mebane, the Chapel Hill, the Hillsborough, all the planning 514
<br />departments together to coming up with a real vision for Orange County as a whole. I'm not 515
<br />hearing that. What am I missing? 516
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<br />Leigh Anne King: So, I think that there is definitely an effort in this process to engage the municipalities' leadership. 518
<br />There was a survey that was sent to the mayors of all the municipalities. There have been public 519
<br />engagement efforts, at least within close proximity to each of the municipalities and there has 520
<br />been advertising to community members there. So, I think in this effort, while it is not, regional at 521
<br />the County-level sense, this is not a plan that Hillsborough, Mebane, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and 522
<br />Orange County are collectively developing. There is an effort to try to encourage that coordination 523
<br />and collaboration as part of this effort. Some states have top-down planning that require regional 524
<br />planning coordination. North Carolina is not one of those, and we're not really set up to do that if 525
<br />it's not forced at the local level, but I think, actually, if you look at the history of this County and 526
<br />compare it to most counties in the state, and I would even go so far as to say a lot of the 527
<br />southeast, there's been a lot more collaboration and regional planning. The joint planning 528
<br />agreement is a great case study example of that than most places. 529
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<br />Cy Stober: Yeah, and I want to echo that but with a little more detail and I think Tom, I would invite Tom or 531
<br />Perdita to speak in greater detail because they've lived with these local agreements longer than I 532
<br />have. The joint planning agreement established the rural buffer. It established the transition 533
<br />areas in Carrboro, and it regulates the use of land around Carrboro and Chapel Hill. The central 534
<br />Orange coordinated area and the land-use agreement with the Town of Hillsborough coordinates 535
<br />land use so that Hillsborough and the County are acting in coordination and consistent with each 536
<br />other in the perimeter areas around the Town of Hillsborough, and then the Water and Sewer 537
<br />Management. Planning, and Boundary Agreement, WASMPBA regulates the use of OWASA 538
<br />utilities and Hillsborough utilities to support new development in the County. The exception of 539
<br />that, which you are intimately familiar with, is how the legislature did an end run on us with schools 540
<br />and that does trump any local agreements with regard to utility extension and use. But otherwise, 541
<br />there's been decades of, including key staff at Clarion Associates, with regard to coordinated 542
<br />planning in the County. Currently, the only municipalities that we do not have inter local 543
<br />agreements with are the City of Durham which has a small part of County land within its 544
<br />incorporated limits on the east side, over near the 751 corridor, and the City of Mebane, and the 545
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