Orange County NC Website
concentrated. So, if you look at the setbacks on the north and the south side of the property, <br /> they are basically building in the current plan right up to the property line. There is very little <br /> buffer to protect the owners to the south and to the north of the school plan currently. One of <br /> the things that I would like to see personally amended into special use permits is that, if you're <br /> going to grant a special use applicant access to the residential agricultural setting that you <br /> would raise the minimum requirements of setback and buffer requirements. I think that in a <br /> school scenario it would be very beneficial for any school in any location to have a minimum <br /> 100-foot hardwood buffer all the way around at least three sides of the property to protect <br /> adjacent landowners and the students themselves. <br /> To wrap up, boeioa||y, we started a petition in the neighborhood. As of today, 27 adjoining <br /> landowners have signed the petition against the approval. I would like to submit that for the <br /> Council's review. I appreciate your time. <br /> Bill Boyarsky: I've been sworn. Thirty-one years ago my wife and I bought land on Terry <br /> Road when it was still a dirt road. At the time, our road was defined a rural paradise to live for <br /> the rest of our lives. We still intend to spend the rest of our lives out there. I'll first note that my <br /> family is full of educators. I myself have volunteered extensively in the Orange County schools. <br /> My concerns are not about the school; my concerns are about the accelerated change of the <br /> loss of the rural nature of our street. In particular, I'd like to put a human face on traffic. For <br /> the 31 years I've lived out there, I regularly walk the length of the road. Much of the time during <br /> the year, the ideal walking time for walking time outside corresponds to the time school gets <br /> out. When you are passed by traffic, you are forced off the edge of the road into grass, which <br /> is wet and sometimes tick and chigger-laden. It can be fairly unpleasant. A number of times, <br /> I've been nearly hit by cars, even though I walk opposing traffic, cars coming in my direction <br /> passing at the same time, I mean within a fDVt, a scary distance. I know of at least two <br /> neighbors, people on the road who walk regularly, who have been hit, one who ended up in the <br /> hospital. Traffic has a very real face as far as I'm concerned. I would expect the school traffic <br /> to be more conservative than most, but it always runs late, and you're a little bit careless when <br /> you're in a hurry and you have to meet a deadline. I'm also one of the organizers of the Friends <br /> of Terry Adopt a Highway. For more than 10 years we've been picking up trash, which is <br /> generated by motorists. We pick up a lot of trash, and frankly, the trash is fairly proportionate <br /> to the amount of traffic. I'm also fairly concerned about the traffic impact on wildlife. I'm an <br /> amateur herpetologist. Our State reptile is the box turtle. I've been participating in a statewide <br /> box turtle survey over the last few years. I can tell you that many, many years ago I had to stop <br /> a number of times on my way to work, twice on the 1.2 miles toward Durham to pick up box <br /> turtles and get them off the road. These days, I might see a box turtle on Terry Road once a <br /> month. Box turtles are just one example of wildlife which is impacted by traffic. I did a little bit <br /> of research on traffic myself. The Department of Transportation publishes statistics on 24-hour <br /> counts. The last year published on the website was 2005 and the numbers were approximately <br /> 80 cars per day. That's only a four percent increase from 1999. In general, we're having a very <br /> slow increase in traffic on the road. I wanted to understand what the peak traffic would be, <br /> during the times of proposed pickup and drop off of students. My wife and I actually stood out <br /> at the end of our driveway and took 15-minute interval data samples for a couple of days. We <br /> determined that during peak times, conservatively, we're looking at a 2-415% increase. Keith <br /> points out that I'm very conservative. I'd be glad to pass out my raw data and my assumptions <br /> on. <br /> One last point about the school site, just DVrthoftheoecoOdd[iveway. thanewdriVexvay. igg <br /> downward sloping, north facing curve. This is actually probably the most dangerous piece of <br />