7_10_24 Planning Board Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Approved 8.7.24 current AR zoning, however, already permits family care centers without rezoning. The 453 claim that these centers should be a permitted use that family care homes should be a 454 permitted use in MPD-CDs to align with state law raises several unanswered questions. 455 While North Carolina law defines family care homes as a permissible use in all residential 456 districts, an MPD-CD district provides for nonresidential and mixed-use developments as 457 well as large scale subdivisions and allows quote “flexibility to accommodate land use 458 adjustments in response to evolving market trends.” It appears from communications 459 over the past year and a half the planning staff and the developer have been discussing 460 who staff or developer would request this change to permit family care homes in MPD-CD 461 zoning. This proposal is part of a wholesale attempt by the developer to re-write County 462 ordinances and comprehensive planning to benefit a single developer. Please do not 463 approve this proposed amendment, given that the motivation for it and beneficiaries of the 464 proposed changes remain unclear. Please note that the analysis and staff 465 recommendation in the agenda packet referring to healthcare include inaccuracies. The 466 statement of consistency claims that the development would provide outpatient medical 467 care and I heard earlier a discussion about a group medical center. This is unfounded 468 because according to definitions in state law and the health and human services 469 department, a family care facility does not require skilled nursing or physicians for 470 licensing and would not provide medical care, outpatient, or inpatient. It's simply a facility 471 providing personal care for daily living. There would be zero harm in not recommending 472 the proposed UDO amendments from Item 8. Not recommending this change would not 473 harm people seeking to establish a family care home in a residential district because 474 family care homes are permitted in residential zones, including agricultural residential. 475 Item 9, rezoning from agricultural residential to master plan conditional would streamline 476 the application process but only benefiting the developer to the detriment of the 477 surrounding community. According to the UDO, MPD-CD districts shall be limited to 478 transition land use categories within the Orange County planning jurisdiction and rural 479 community nodes. By design, our low-density agricultural residential zone without water 480 or sewer lines, public transit, or sidewalks, is not slated to support the massive 481 infrastructure needs of high-density development without depleting limited water 482 resources and irrevocably transforming farmland, waterways, and woodlands. The 483 proposed rezoning is wildly incompatible with the surrounding multi-generational 484 community. Recommending the proposed rezoning and a decade or more of construction 485 would likely displace existing community members, heritage farms, and young farmers 486 currently thriving and supporting older relatives who are truly aging in place. The 487 developer proposes changes that threaten not only this rural community but all of Orange 488 County's current and future farmers, food economy, consumers of local products, and 489 open space. The Morrow Mill and Goldmine Loop residents are a model of successful 490 rural community. We're thriving despite a series of problematic proposals for the area that 491 have put farms, public health, and the environment at risk. We firmly reject this project 492 because it threatens an existing community. I want to clarify some key information about 493 diabase dikes. In 1991, an attempt to site a landfill was defeated because it would have 494 leached contaminants into ground water based on a rock formation called a diabase dike 495 on Orange Chapel Clover Garden Road, just up the road from this facility. In 2008, 496 commissioners learned of the presence of the same diabase dike in the same area 497 proposed for developing the UNC Airport at the time that was defeated. More recently, 498 neighbors at the corner of Morrow Mill and Highway 54 have had their wells contaminated 499 by leakage from a previous gas station. This developer's proposal for massive water 500 draws and disposal of liquid sewage would further threaten these wells, surrounding 501 neighbors with a cluster of polluting infrastructure co-located next to them and raising 502