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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 199508101 APPROVED 9/5/95 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS BI-MONTHLY WORK SESSION AUGUST 10, 1995 The Orange County Board of County Commissioners met on August 10, 1995 in the Government Services Center meeting room in Hillsborough at 7:30 p.m for a bi-monthly work session. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Carey, and Commissioners William L. Crowther, Stephen H. Halkiotis and Don Willhoit COIINTY COMMISSIONER ABSENT: Commissioner Alice Gordon COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: Geoffrey Gledhill COIINTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Manager Rod Visser, Clerk to the Board Beverly A. Blythe and Planning Director Marvin Collins CHANGES TO_ THE AGEND Item 2 "Report on Impact Fees" will be first on the agenda. Item 3 "Discussion of Options for Jail/Courthouse Construction" was deleted from the agenda. A report on this will be given at a regular Board of County Commissioners meeting. Chair Carey asked that a report be presented on a future agenda on the Minimum Housing Ordinance and, specifically, the number of complaints and if the requirement of indoor plumping was added to the ordinance. REPORT ON THE IMPACT FEE Planning Director Marvin Collins made the presentation. The discussion following the presentation has been done in great detail for future reference. Commissioner Halkiotis made reference to information presented a couple of years ago showing two interesting growth patterns in the County and said that with respect to mobile/modular homes it holds a lot of truth because the report shows the number of kids coming out of mobile/modular homes in the northern end of the County versus the southern end is rather dramatic. He asked Marvin Collins if he expects this trend to continue. Mr. Collins said that he does expect the trend of half mobile/modular homes and half "stick-built" single-family homes being constructed/installed to continue. He noted that the annual number of building permits issued for such homes is not any different than it was thirteen years ago. Commissioner Willhoit asked if it would be possible to break the student generation data down by planning jurisdictions. Marvin Collins said it is possible. The data base has all the tax maps, lot and block numbers for each one of the housing units, so they will need to identify the planning jurisdictions or area and sort. ~ Y 2 Commissioner Willhoit would like to see this within the Chapel Hill/Carrboro planning jurisdiction, joint planning and beyond. However, there is probably very little in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro district that is beyond the joint planning area. Marvin Collins said that much of the data is from within the Joint Planning Area, particularly from Chapel Hill/Carrboro's ETJ. He noted that the closer to the urbanized area, the greater the student generation rates. Commissioner Willhoit asked to see the data for the Rural Buffer and Joint Planning Area including Carrboro's Transitional Area. He said that for the County School district, it would be helpful to see the data for the Hillsborough jurisdiction and thus know which areas are generating students. In answer to a question from Commissioner Halkiotis, Marvin Collins said that no one in the state is using impact fees to finance school construction cost except Orange County. There are many other localities around the country which have adopted impact fees. Many are using sliding scales and have gone through a process similar to what Orange County is doing. Some use a combination of dwelling types and number of bedrooms as a basis for the sliding scale. Some fees are based on square footage in the structure. In answer to a question from Commissioner Halkiotis about relating the impact fee back to student generation rates, Geof Gledhill said that there is a two part test. The one part is a rough-proportionality test where there must be some relationship between the fee and the impact. If a larger fee is charged for a bigger house, then there must be some data that shows that bigger houses generate more children and have more of an impact on schools. That is why these exercises have been done. First, there must be some idea that new housing has an impact on schools and then some idea about what impact different types of housing have on schools before there can be a different fee. It is the difference between a fee and a tax. Commissioner Crowther made reference to the bubble effect about the students in elementary school and asked if this bubble could continue into the middle school and high school. Marvin Collins said that it is "like a wave". It is one of the reasons for reviewing the technical report on an annual basis to see if revisions are necessary. The "wave" effect is one reason why the technical report needs to be revisited to see if it is necessary to adjust the impact fees based on higher or lower student generation rates or construction costs. Commissioner Halkiotis said that there are two sizable developments getting ready to develop in the northern end of the County, with a potential of 200 homes, which could really change the report. Marvin Collins said that is another reason for reviewing the report on an annual basis. Over a two to three year period, single- family dwellings could flatten out and more emphasis given to construction of apartments or condominiums. Such a situation needs to be considered annually in the technical report update. 3 Commissioner Crowther asked about the 1~ funding projected -- the relationship between the amount of funds needed for school capital and how much impact fees were adding to that. Rod Visser, Assistant County Manager, said the amount is about $400,000 per year for each school system. John Link said that $1.2 million is what has been brought in from impact fees for the CIP. In the last eight years, Orange County has invested $108,000,000 in new capital construction, so impact fees represent approximately 1$ of total funding. Commissioner Crowther asked what the projected rate of increase would be with the change in the impact fee from $750 to $1500. Chair Carey asked Collins if he feels that the 0.31 student generation rate for the County schools would be sufficient to justify the $750.00 for the County system. Collins said that the amount of the impact fees were lower than the current maximum that could be charged, but it would not be below $'750. Commissioner Willhoit made reference to the graph on page 10 which shows the average number of bedrooms versus the number of kids. He noted that the top graph of Appendix A has the same label but is different. Marvin Collins said that the graph in the Appendix is the Orange County District and all the graphs in the text are for the Chapel Hill/Carrboro School District. Commissioner Willhoit said that if he were going to graph this, he would graph the number of bedrooms versus the average number of kids. Commissioner Willhoit said it looks like a pretty strong correlation but not much spread in the number of bedrooms. He asked for a graph turned around the other way. Collins said they could do it. Marvin Collins said that the spread is what the interns focused on and even though there may seem to be some relationship because it is going up, the spread is so narrow. Ted Abernathy explained that the spread is between 3.5 and 4.1 bedrooms. If the graph were to start at zero, the spread would be different, e.g., the line would appear flatter. John Link asked the Board of County Commissioners about the next steps to pursue. One step is to reexamine the formula by which they apply the fee. He feels that one important element needed before formulating any division of fees is the outcome of the Committee that is working on school construction standards. Collins agreed and said that part of the information used in the calculation of the impact fee is information about school standards. So far, minimum standards of the DPI have been used. Comparing DPI standards with the schools built recently shows that the new schools in Orange County are much higher in the number of square feet per student. A missing element is that there has been no adoption of or consensus reached on school construction standards. If the Committee can come to terms on that issue, then the construction standards can be factored into the technical report so all pieces of the puzzle are there. The student generation rates, school construction standards and cost per square foot can all be included in the calculations of the impact fee. 4 Chair Carey said he feels there will be time to factor that information into the final report. He would like to get some public comment on what has been done to date on the technical report including some of the comments made tonight. Commissioner Crowther suggested sending out a letter of appreciation to everyone who contributed to the study. This includes Mr. Collins and the interns, the Carrboro Planning Department, Chapel Hill's Inspections Department, Jane Sparks of Data Processing and the staff of the two school boards. In answer to a question from Chair Carey, Collins said that he can address the concerns stated above within one month. It was decided to hold a public hearing on this matter on October 2, 1995. Mary Bushnell, Chapel Hill/Carrboro School Board member, and also speaking on behalf of Child Care Networks, said that from her perspective, the fact that preschool children are not included in the report in any way may account for the percentage of new housing units which do not have school age children. She is not sure if this is something they can get a handle on or not or if this issue can be factored in since the impact is down the road. Marvin Collins said that the concern was legitimate. Other people have expressed similar concerns about the pre-school children and why they are not factored into the technical report. Questions have also been raised about why private school students were not considered. Suggestions have also been made to include projections of school enrollment. All of these things can be considered, but when calculating the fees, projections of school enrollment cannot be directly considered. Impact fee calculations must focus on public school students, and it is the responsibility of the School Boards to consider growth and school enrollment when determining how many schools are needed to take care of the projected enrollment, developing a capital improvement program, and requesting funds from the County to build enough schools. That is the point where preschoolers and school enrollment come into play. That is the identified need that is taken into account in the technical report. Currently, one school of each type is needed in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district and one elementary school is needed in the Orange County district. Commissioner Willhoit requested a graph showing data for the number of bedrooms versus the average number of kids, because the Board is trying to establish a relationship between the fee and the number of bedrooms -- not on the number of kids. This would make it easier to visualize, and, if it is fairly flat, it may result in relative inequities for a large number of families. Also, he would like a graph showing the distribution of children in new homes from the existing population. He would like to know if new units have different number of kids than the existing ones and how this will shift the overall distribution. 5 Commissioner Crowther asked to see the relationship between new enrollment and whether or not one or more parents has any connection, either by enrollment in and/or employment by the University of North Carolina. He would like to see the impact of growth on the University level and how that impacts the schools. However, this may be a School Board initiative and not something the County can produce. Commissioner Willhoit said that the student population in the schools has grown much more rapidly than the employment base of the University and Hospital. Chair Carey asked that the technical report include those items mentioned above and be given to the Board of County Commissioners before the October 2 public hearing. COIINTY INNOVATION AND EFFICIENCY COMMITTEE The agenda included information on the composition of this committee and a proposed charge. This item was presented so feedback could be received from the County Commissioners. The recommended timeframe is December, 1995. Commissioner Halkiotis said that he agrees with this committee reviewing all areas of County government and making recommendations on innovations and/or efficiencies that can be taken to improve services to the public and increasing staff productivity. However, he is not sure this committee is designed to increase performance or morale. When considering efficiency, he was hoping that this committee could make possible cuts to the size of government without decreasing services to the public, productivity, performance or anything else connected to that. Chair Carey clarified that the concept of efficiency is not tied to cuts but he feels there are a number of things that can be done to improve efficiency. The focus is not what can be cut from County government. Services are being provided that are needed. If there are services that are no longer meaningful, then these are the ones that should not be provided. He wants to know how to do what is being done more efficiently. He is concerned about performance and morale of the staff. The most productive staffs are those with high morale and care about what they are doing. The group should not be asked for recommendations if they don't have any. Commissioner Willhoit said that when talking about morale and how this group will interface with staff -- he did not think of this as a management study. He feels the County has good staff, good management and high morale and this group can fine-tune what is present. When talking about covering all areas, that would be a large task. Maybe at the first session, the group could brainstorm and the Manager can propose some areas which would benefit from citizen involvement. Commissioner Crowther said that they could take the County's current budget and give departments 10$ less money and ask them to figure out how to make it more efficient. Commissioner Willhoit feels there could be a problem in terms of what the County's programs are attempting to do. 6 Chair Carey feels that there is good performance and high morale in County government. However, he feels that putting a committee together like this could adversely affect morale and they don't want to do that. He asked the Board to refine the charge so that it is workable. The staff has already begun to implement a survey of the citizens to get a perception of what the public thinks about the performance of County government and delivering the services provided. This survey could be used as a focus point for this year and then next year do something else. John Link made reference to item C and the results of a correlative citizen survey which would include an opinion from employees about their delivery of service. This survey could give a broad basis of citizen opinion by which the citizen group could begin making targeting analysis of certain areas. He feels they need to identify those areas where there could be the greatest impact for efficiency or productivity. The first step might be to take a look at what the County departments have already done in innovation and efficiency. He would hope that by December, this group could decide their main focus and before then come back to the Board of County Commissioners with a specific proposal for doing the survey. The results would probably not be in by December. Chair Carey said that he would like to have a more objective basis for targeting the areas that the Board of County Commissioners want this group to analyze. Commissioner Willhoit feels there should be some way to select a 15 member board with persons who don't have specific interest or a specific cause that they will want to push. Commissioner Halkiotis feels that it will take at least the first two meetings to initiate the members of this group to County government. Orange County makes a big commitment to fund public education and this group will need to know that. Chair Carey suggested using the first month for educating this group on County services. Then wait until the results of the survey are in and then use that to target specific areas for analyzing. Commissioner Willhoit said that it would be good for this group to identify a particular area they want to address but have as the larger objective to come up with this citizen survey instrument and then to do some evaluation of the results and then to propose what areas would benefit from a more in-depth study. Chair Carey said he would be reluctant to just ask the group to pick an area because they could spend a great deal of time trying to decide which area to study further. He prefers that the area of study either be picked by the County Commissioners or be the result of a more objective survey and focus the attention of that group that way. He agreed it will take at least two months for this group to learn about County government. The Board decided to rethink the charge and timing of this group and bring it back to the Board of County Commissioners at a future meeting. Commissioner Willhoit make reference to a questionnaire for former volunteers and said that these people have been involved and have more knowledge of the workings of County government and might bring some new perspectives. ADJOIIRNMENT With no other items to be discussed, Chair Carey adjourned the meeting. The next regular meeting of the Board of County Commissioners will be held on August 22, 1995 at 7:30 at the OWASA community meeting room in Carrboro, North Carolina. Moses Carey, Jr., Chair Beverly A. Blythe, Clerk