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12 <br /> <br />including zoning actions. He said if a community wants to have zoning, it must have an adopted 1 <br />land use plan, and to make any land use decision, it must refer to the adopted plan. Cy Stober 2 <br />explained that the Board can make a decision that does not follow the plan, but by consequence, 3 <br />that would change the plan. 4 <br />Commissioner McKee said, technically, the rural buffer doesn’t prevent building, but it 5 <br />prevents dense development. He stated the side effect of that is that to build there, you must have 6 <br />a larger lot, which means larger homes, which means very few people can afford them. He said 7 <br />this goes back to the question of housing affordability and the question of how Orange County 8 <br />will grow compared to neighboring counties. 9 <br /> Commissioner Fowler said she did the math regarding Commissioner Hamilton’s earlier 10 <br />comment about absolute population numbers vs. the percentage. The number of African 11 <br />Americans in Orange County remained stable from 2010-2022 at 16,000, while the white 12 <br />population increased from 95,000 to about 105,000. 13 <br /> Cy Stober said staff will update the Fact Book to show the actual numbers in addition to 14 <br />percentages. 15 <br /> Tom Altieri continued his presentation of the current slide. He said the map on the bottom 16 <br />is a screenshot of the preliminary draft FLUM for the 2050 Land Use Plan. While there are 17 <br />similarities to the existing FLUM, there are also some differences. He pointed out that economic 18 <br />development areas were retained, and some were expanded around the Mebane area. He said 19 <br />the rural buffer was also retained, as well as the concept of activity nodes. A key difference he 20 <br />mentioned is the introduction of rural conservation neighborhoods, shown on the map in brown. 21 <br />He said those types of neighborhoods can only be implemented through changes to the UDO to 22 <br />accommodate those types of subdivisions. He said staff is working with Randall Arndt to present 23 <br />to the Board on this type of conservation subdivision. 24 <br /> Commissioner Fowler asked if rural conservation neighborhoods would be allowed in the 25 <br />Rural Buffer as it currently stands. 26 <br /> Perdita Holtz said she will get to that during her presentation. 27 <br /> 28 <br />Slide #16 29 <br /> 30