|
Approved 2.5.25
<br />County has had utility agreements with both of those cities, neither or which are current and they 546
<br />both expired. There was some, I guess, dictation of land use in those utility agreements, but 547
<br />again, they are both expired. I think to move forward and pretend that we're not going to have a 548
<br />recommendation on coordinating land use with the City of Mebane is foolhardy and I'm happy to 549
<br />say that out loud, and that it's a recommendation that I think the staff would propose to the Board 550
<br />and to this Board that we move forward with exactly that. How broad or how specific that 551
<br />recommendation will be has to be determined, but we will be moving forward with a 552
<br />recommendation to better coordinate land use with the City of Mebane, and as the former 553
<br />development director there, and to Beth's point, having Mebane just have a bland future growth 554
<br />area recommendation; that it should be secondary growth in that entire area, is unacceptable to 555
<br />the County and me as the planning director of the County. We need more specificity from the city 556
<br />on where and of what type of development they want to see and the parts of Orange County that 557
<br />they may annex or may grow into in the future while also respecting their ability to annex and 558
<br />make decisions on their own, but we'd like to at least have a realistic vision of what that future 559
<br />looks like. 560
<br /> 561
<br />Lamar Proctor: Was there any discussion about the 751 / US 70 Durham part up there? 562
<br /> 563
<br />Cy Stober: We actually got an email to the City of Durham that we were included on. Our commissioners, the 564
<br />Durham City Council, and Sarah Young, their joint City County Planning Department, so Sarah 565
<br />responded to that individual, because they wanted to expand their light industrial, or heavy 566
<br />commercial use out there, and they can't do it without utilities, and they reiterated their position 567
<br />that they don't have an agreement with the County, and none is forthcoming. Then that 568
<br />applicant’s within their rights to apply for annexation and utility extension, but that the extension 569
<br />would be totally at the applicant's cost, which is pretty much a nonstarter given the constraints and 570
<br />the cost in that area. 571
<br /> 572
<br />Lamar Proctor: And then a second question about, can you kind of explain to me the push for development south 573
<br />of West Ten, and is it also part of the discussions in the Seven Mile Creek protected watershed 574
<br />that these things all come together right there. I think being in Cheeks and living in that area I do 575
<br />know that the local residents absolutely do not want to lose critically protected watershed of Seven 576
<br />Mile Creek, especially, what is east of Bushy Cook, that area over there, that's designated 577
<br />critically protected. Why the push for south of West Ten and how far does that go? 578
<br /> 579
<br />Leigh Anne King: Good question. I think, we haven't had a lot of discussion in this process about fiscal 580
<br />sustainability of the County, and thinking about its tax base, but that is an important consideration 581
<br />when you're doing land use planning because you want to think about the types of uses, you're 582
<br />creating capacity for. That's what we were evaluating with the land use alternatives. And there is, 583
<br />in terms of thinking about economic development opportunities within Orange County, the kind of 584
<br />highest and best use areas are all going to be along the interstates, particularly close to 585
<br />interchanges. Those are going to be the best properties to be able to support and encourage 586
<br />those types of business activities. Looking at infrastructure, looking at road and interstate 587
<br />accessibility, thinking about avoiding, to your point, important lands. There are very few places 588
<br />within this County where you can put economic development, so we were just hearing about the 589
<br />EDD that has utility constraints. It's still available for economic development, but it, at this time, it 590
<br />has to be done a scale that doesn't require public utilities, which is limiting in terms of what can 591
<br />actually go there. So, yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's needed for fiscal 592
<br />balance. We want to be able to provide all of the things that people want in this community. It 593
<br />costs money, and the more you put that burden on the residential taxpayers, the higher the taxes 594
<br />will get over time, and so it's important to be looking at opportunities for economic development to 595
<br />kind of share that tax burden. 596
<br /> 597
<br />Charity Kirk: Following up on that, but there's critically, there's protected watersheds. How are you dealing with 598
<br />the environmental aspect of that? 599
<br /> 600
|