Agenda - 10-07-2008- 7b - Laserfiche WebLink

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272 requisite public infrastructure. This section should assure the reader that. work on these critical objectives is coordinated and finished such that the infrastructure will begin to come on line within the next 3-5 years, if not sooner. As it stands now, it's not clear when and how this will happen. Personally, I support the emphasis on compact, mixed-use developments not only because it's a good conservation strategy, but because this is the best strategy for significantly increasing the supply of housing affordable to working and middle class households. To put it another way, if the plan's implementation does not result in an increased supply of less expensive land - on a per lot basis -for residential development than currently available, then the comprehensive plan update will have little or no impact on reducing the shortage of workforce housing in the county. This points to the main flaw with the plan's housing element. It almost exclusively focuses on issues related to affordable and special needs housing; albeit an area of concern which I fully support. However, the housing element should also address the systemic problems which. cause the county's housing market to skew towards upper-income housing and recommend actions for bringing the market into a more equitable balance. Finally, I encourage the Commissioners to ask themselves if they've heard from as many stakeholders as they feel is appropriate for a policy document of this significance before voting on the plan later this summer. I believe the compressed time schedule put a strain on the planning advisory boards and diminished the opportunity -especially during Phase 11-for widespread and continuous community input. As such, I encourage the Commissioners to immediately solicit the written comments of each lead advisory board so that their comments can be .utilized by the Planning Board as they continue to refine the plan this summer. Indeed, one or more joint advisory board meetings at this stage would be useful in assessing community support for the proposal, as well as gathering constructive recommendations for final improvements." Holly Reid read a prepared statement: "My name is Holly Reid and I am a co-founder of the Walkable Hillsborough Coalition, a group of community volunteers who have worked the past seven years to advocate for pedestrian and bike ways for Hillsborough, surrounding communities, and Orange County. I have been involved in the exploring the possibility of reopening a train station in Hillsborough. I am also one of the twenty-nine members of the Special Transit Advisory Commission, whose charge was to recommend a regional transit system for the Triangle region to our joinf Metropolitan Planning Organization representatives. Our final report will be presented to the MPO's this Wednesday, May 21, in Raleigh: Over the years and especially through my involvement on the STAC, I have learned that the Triangle area is one of the most sprawled regions in the country and that we expect a million more people to Wake, Durham, and Orange Counties in the next 20 years. I have learned that we are off-the-scale auto centric in our country, and that we are realizing the great costs of this choice every day: poor health, poor community connections, dangerous and unattractive alternative modes of getting around, disenfranchised young and old, loss of commerce in our downtowns, and an irresponsible carbon footprint, to name a few. I believe our Unified Transportation Board recognizes these huge community costs. They have listed many of these as key issues in a future Comprehensive Transportation Plan that is recommended in Objective T-3.2, and they see this plan as addressing strategies for all transportation modes, including bike; pedestrian, rail and all other critical transit facilities. What is absolutely critical to righting our heavily over-weighted single modal car culture is ,a new multi-modal transportation system that is well emphasized in Goal 3. What needs just as much emphasis in Goal 3 is future development that is compact, walkable and in mixed-use neighborhoods along transit corridors supported by transit. Transit and pedestrian-oriented