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Approved 2.5.25
<br />housing stock. Hopefully help with affordability issues, or at least provide some housing choices 709
<br />within the County. And I want to be careful because the Board was very astute in saying that we 710
<br />need to be very careful about talking about this being the direct link to creating affordable housing, 711
<br />because there are a lot of steps that have to happen at a particular project level to make that 712
<br />happen. We don't have inclusionary housing in this state, and so we can't mandate that as part of 713
<br />the land use plan and our regulations, but it provides opportunity for creating more housing 714
<br />choice, potentially, because you can do denser development. So maybe you could have some 715
<br />townhomes, or some smaller-lot, single-family, or duplexes, etc., to create more housing choice, 716
<br />which hopefully leads to affordability. 717
<br /> 718
<br />Dolores Bailey: Okay. Cy, is that something like what might happen on the Greene Tract? So, the protected areas 719
<br />are identified first? 720
<br /> 721
<br />Cy Stober: Yes, but the Greene Tract's better. 722
<br /> 723
<br />Dolores Bailey: It's been in planning for a long time. 724
<br /> 725
<br />Cy Stober: I mean, it is what it is. It's certainly been a talking point. But it's better, the reason that it's better is 726
<br />that the County is an owner along with the towns, and so we get to dictate the terms of 727
<br />affordability, and we have a lot more power as a landowner. And, the City of Durham, particularly, 728
<br />going back to Mayor Bell, but also, especially, Steve Schewel, when he was mayor there, the man 729
<br />is a walking dictionary, encyclopedia, of affordable housing in North Carolina. And they realized 730
<br />the general assembly has limited the options so that essentially if you want to dictate affordability, 731
<br />you need to own the land, or you need to own an easement on the land. And there are a couple 732
<br />of notable zoning cases in the city where land ownership was negotiated and then terms were 733
<br />established once the County was able to establish ownership rights to the land. And the Greene 734
<br />Tract affords this. The Town of Chapel Hill, and the Town of Carrboro, and I really hope that we 735
<br />agree on what the affordability should be. And we already have agreed, minimally, what the 736
<br />environmental protections should be, with the headwaters preserve. But the master plan also 737
<br />provides for additional green space and connectivity on the Greene Tract. So, the Greene Tract is 738
<br />better in that regard. It's also aspirational, which is the frustration, as it's not real yet. But it could 739
<br />be a really great model for what we'd like to see, and we're going to be, lord knows Perdita spent 740
<br />the whole summer making sure that it got across the finish line, so, yes, indeed, and we got more 741
<br />work to do, and we're hoping that it'll come to reality very soon. But we'd love to be able to hold 742
<br />that up as the model that we would like others to emulate. 743
<br /> 744
<br />Dolores Bailey: And my last question is, in your set of questions to the commissioners, did you all talk anything 745
<br />about transportation and some type of transportation to the northern part of the County, 746
<br />connecting us better that way? 747
<br /> 748
<br />Leigh Anne King: We didn't have a specific question about transportation. There is actually, I'm not sure kind of 749
<br />what the status is at this point, there is an ongoing transportation plan that's being developed for 750
<br />the County right now. So, our questions were much more land use focused because of this effort. 751
<br />But, again, we have been coordinating with the staff working group and the various interests that 752
<br />work on transportation in the County to think about – I think because we got the message through 753
<br />the engagement that the more dense housing options needed to be focused within the existing 754
<br />municipalities, it changes the conversation a little bit about transportation outside in the 755
<br />unincorporated area, but to your point, it's still a very important consideration to be thinking about. 756
<br /> 757
<br />Dolores Bailey: Especially if we want to ever move the density of housing further out in Orange County. 758
<br /> 759
<br />Adam Beeman: Steve? Whitney? 760
<br /> 761
<br />Whitney Watson: I'm struck by how close most of the numbers are that you reported. And I'm wondering if there are 762
<br />clear, more than a few percentage points, mandates for one direction or another. Or, when you 763
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