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DRAFT
<br /> 550 community to manage it. Individually, everybody owns their own system, and they have
<br /> 551 to maintain it.
<br /> 552
<br /> 553 Charity Kirk: Yeah.
<br /> 554
<br /> 555 Venkat Yendapalli: That's where I think a lot of them fall off, because most people that go to the rural side,
<br /> 556 county, into the county to live, it's very minimal conditions and subdivisions, they have a
<br /> 557 lot of land.
<br /> 558
<br /> 559 Charity Kirk: But I mean, some of the developments, like some of the more recent developments
<br /> 560 haven't even looked into community septic because of our decision on Fiddlehead. Like,
<br /> 561 they don't even bring it up because of our decision for it.
<br /> 562
<br /> 563 Venkat Yendapalli: That's true. The tone of the county, right? The county planning and the county
<br /> 564 commissioners and the planning board, would, do we encourage that type of systems or
<br /> 565 not? Once we set the tone and the developers take that into consideration, that way this
<br /> 566 is an option that works in Orange County. Whereas in Chatham County, package units
<br /> 567 are very well encouraged. They do it all the time, all year. But here, we don't have a
<br /> 568 single one, do we? In, in our county?
<br /> 569
<br /> 570 Charity Kirk: Do you feel like they have been successful when you've looked at them in other areas?
<br /> 571
<br /> 572 Cy Stober: Depends. It's entirely dependent upon the operation of the systems, and Tony went into
<br /> 573 that in detail. It is entirely dependent upon the operator and the investment to maintain
<br /> 574 that system. They generally have a 30-year lifespan, and they can be replaced easily in
<br /> 575 the repair area without much problem at all, but you have to plan for it. Just like with
<br /> 576 private roads, you have to plan for private roads; otherwise, they will crumble and fall
<br /> 577 apart on you, and then you have an emergency access and an insurance issue. But to
<br /> 578 get back to your question about how could we regulate these. So, most of these are in
<br /> 579 engineered option plans. So, they are complex engineered systems that are submitted to
<br /> 580 the state, North Carolina DEQ, for permitting. They're not submitted to Orange County.
<br /> 581 They are required to provide regular reports to Orange County and annual inspection
<br /> 582 reports at least to Orange County, but they're initially permitted by the state. And the
<br /> 583 applicant can choose to include Orange County Environmental Health or not. And some
<br /> 584 do, and some don't. It's generally to their benefit to include the county. So, they have that
<br /> 585 right to pursue that. What the county has, though, is we have land-use regulation. And
<br /> 586 whether it's a point of discharge, point of treated waste-water discharge, which is the
<br /> 587 package plant, or whether it's community septic system, the question of how you use that
<br /> 588 land and how it affects the neighbors is entirely within the purview of the county and within
<br /> 589 our development ordinance. So, similar to how we regulate the subdivision of land, and
<br /> 590 we say, "If you're going to do more than 20 lots you have to go through zoning," I think it
<br /> 591 is reasonable for if you like to consider a standard that says if you're going to have a
<br /> 592 community septic system that requires state permitting, that it must be considered through
<br /> 593 a legislative process, a zoning process. There's probably some nuance to figure out
<br /> 594 there, more than 30 lots and community system, or just community system, and more
<br /> 595 than 12 lots, which is a major subdivision in Orange County. I'm spit-balling here, but
<br /> 596 there's a logical and defensible threshold that you could require rezoning.
<br /> 597
<br /> 598 Charity Kirk: So, there's thresholds, there's potentially we could do bonds for failure, and then
<br /> 599 monitoring?
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