Orange County NC Website
14 <br /> DRAFT <br /> 438 don't apply our subdivision standards,so that's landscaping, buffers, road standards, lighting. Or <br /> 439 not lighting. We got roads, landscaping,what else do we have? We have environmental open <br /> 440 space protections, all those things don't come into play. We're not allowed to apply them. And <br /> 441 this is a biggie, the next one, and we hear a lot of frustration from the farming community about <br /> 442 this one, is the division of land into parcels greater than 10 acres or no street right of way <br /> 443 dedication. So,you don't have a public street. You can have a private street, but you can't have a <br /> 444 public street because a private right of way doesn't have to be dedicated. So the division of land <br /> 445 into parcels greater than 10 acres where no street right of way dedication is involved, and this is <br /> 446 how a lot of farmland is lost and this is not our local regulations. We are not permitted to regulate <br /> 447 this division of land. It is also the way that some farmers provide land for their heirs, and again it's <br /> 448 a 10-acre minimum, so we have on occasion seen hundred-acre let's say lots divided into two 30- <br /> 449 acre and a 40-acre lot. That does happen too, and we don't regulate that. We don't apply our <br /> 450 subdivision standards but you also see—we've never seen a 100-acre lot, but theoretically you <br /> 451 could divide it into ten 10-acre lots and we could not apply subdivision standards. Public <br /> 452 acquisition of land for transportation purposes, so that's also known as condemnation and eminent <br /> 453 domain, to create a road. We don't, and this is,we're not permitted at that point if someone has <br /> 454 to, through condemnation,sell their land to DOT or to a municipality. We're not permitted at that <br /> 455 point to say oh and you've got to do landscaping and you've got to do open space and you've got <br /> 456 to provide your own road now because your land's been divided in half by the state. This one we <br /> 457 covered at the ordinance review committee, and we can go into it if you'd like to, but it's rarely <br /> 458 seen in the county. It's more commonly seen in municipalities, because it deals with smaller tracts <br /> 459 of land. But it's, I'm just going to read it. The division of a tract in single ownership whose entire <br /> 460 area is no greater than 2 acres—so 2 acres or smaller—into not more than three lots where no <br /> 461 right of way dedication is involved and the resulting lots meet basically the zoning and all the other <br /> 462 standards. So, if you can do that,you can't apply the subdivision standards again for, say <br /> 463 landscaping, in that event. They have to comply with the zoning standards for setbacks, minimum <br /> 464 lot size and so forth, but not the subdivision standards at that point. So, in our case that would <br /> 465 also involve watershed standards; so impervious cover and so forth as well as our buffers. And <br /> 466 then probated will which I think is kind of common sense to a lot of us that that should be exempt, <br /> 467 although it does create chaos when you end up with a bunch of tiny lots that don't comply with <br /> 468 your zoning. Any questions on exempt actions? <br /> 469 <br /> 470 Beth Bronson: Was there ever a time where it was the division of land,for No. 2, the division of land into parcels <br /> 471 greater than 5 acres? <br /> 472 <br /> 473 Cy Stober: That is expedited,and we're going to get to that one next. <br /> 474 <br /> 475 Beth Bronson: Okay. <br /> 476 <br /> 477 Cy Stober: Yeah. <br /> 478 <br /> 479 Venkat Yendapalli: If there's a public street,the regulations still apply. <br /> 480 <br /> 481 Cy Stober: Correct. So,when you look at the five year,the blue,you'll see the blue bar on every one of these <br /> 482 graphs. That's the total number of applications received and then you can see in the red the <br /> 483 proportion of exempt applications that we receive. You see that we received a lot last year, 70, <br /> 484 over half of the applications we received last year were for exempt actions. And a lot of these are <br /> 485 either 10-acre lots or recombinations. The plat here that you see is for a recombination,so they're <br /> 486 taking Lots 1 and 2 and they're making them into one, and we don't regulate that type of action. <br /> 487 But yeah,the one we hear the most about from folks,the biggest frustration, and,when we look at <br /> 488 say Loudon County, Virginia, they have agricultural zoning. They actually have 40-acre lot <br /> 489 minimums for some of their zoning districts. We're not,this undermines any leverage we might <br /> 490 have to be able to require that in the first place, and then secondly have the leverage to negotiate <br /> 491 on what, say, an agricultural subdivision might look like because we have to start at 10 acres. <br /> 492 That's where our regulations begin is that anything that's bigger than 10 acres, if you're,you can <br />