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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 03-30-2000APPROVED 4!312001 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ASSEMBLY OF GOVERNMENTS MEETING March 30, 2000 The Orange County Board of Commissioners met with the Chapel Hill Town Council and staff, Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board, Carrbaro Board of Aldermen and staff, and Hillsborough Town Board and staff on Thursday, March 30, 2000 at 7:30 p.m. in the boardroom of the Southern Human Services Center, Homestead Road, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Moses Carey, Jr., and Commissioners Margaret W. Brown, Alice M. Gordon, and Barry Jacobs COUNTY COMMISSIONER ABSENT: Stephen H. Halkiatis COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: Geoffrey Gledhill COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John Link, Planning Director Craig Benedict, Planner Gene Bell, Clerk to the Board Beverly A. Blythe, Assistant to County Manager Greg Wilder CHAPEL HILL STAFF PRESENT: Town Manager Cal Horton CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL PRESENT: Pat Evans, Bill Strom, Flicka Bateman, Mayor Pro Tem Lee Pavao, Jim Ward, Kevin Foy and Edith Wiggins CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Superintendent Neil Pedersen, Assistant Superintendent Steve Scroggs and board members Teresa Williams, Maryanne Rosenman and Gloria Foley CARRBORO BOARD OF ALDERMEN PRESENT: Joal Broun, Diana McDuffee, Mayor Pra Tem Jacquelyn Gist, Allen Spalt, Alex Zaffron and Mark Dorasin CARRBORO STAFF PRESENT: Town Manager Robert Morgan and Planning Director Roy Williford HILLSBOROUGH TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Frances Dancy, Mark Sheridan, Brian Lowen and Ken Chavious HILLSBOROUGH STAFF PRESENT: Town Manager Eric Peterson and Planning Director Margaret Hauth 1. Introduction of Topic and Brief History; Purpose and Intent; NEXT STEPS Chair Carey called the meeting to order. None of the Mayors were present at the meeting, but Chair Carey offered any of the Mayor Pro Tems the opportunity to make opening statements. Mayor Waldorf and Mayor Nelson were both ill. The Mebane Town Cauncil was also invited tonight because 20°~ of the Town of Mebane is in Orange County. The Mebane Tawn Council could not be here tonight because of a Town Council meeting. Chair Carey said that Planning Director Craig Benedict would not be duplicating the presentations that have been made to each of the jurisdictions regarding the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, but would provide a brief introduction, history, and intent of the ordinance. Mayor Pro Tem of Chapel Hill Lee Pavao said that Mayor Waldorf apologizes for not being here tonight. Mayor Pro Tem of Carrboro Jackie Gist said that Mayor Nelson was also under the weather. She said that the Carrboro Town Council was excited about this issue because they have been grappling with it for years. Carrbaro is looking forward to working in partnership to tackle the problem of adequate facilities. Mayor Pro Tem of Hillsborough Ken Chavious said that Mayor Johnson regretted not being at the meeting. He said that Hillsborough thinks the ordinance is a good plan. 2 a. Memorandum of Understanding including a draft School Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance b. AttorneylPlanners/School Representatives Workgraup letter to Schools and Land Use Councils (SLUC1 Chair Craig Benedict said that the Schools and Land Use Council has put forth a very strong effort in the past year to develop joint coordination with the representatives from the various towns and school districts to address the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO}. The Schools and Land Use Council has charged a variety of tasks for the different staffs to work on a two-part process. The first part is a memorandum of understanding (MOU} and the second part is a draft ordinance. The MOU is very similar to what the towns and school districts worked with through the Schools and Land Use Council when they were working on joint facilities for recreation and schools. The specifics of the ordinance will be plugged into the land development code of the various jurisdictions. He said that the MOU would not create an adoption of the APFO. All of the comments and questions received at the meetings with the various jurisdictions have been wrapped into the process that the attorneys, planning directors, and school representatives have been working on. This group has met $-10 times to work on the MOU and APFO. He said that he needed further direction from the elected boards before proceeding. Flicka Bateman asked when the boards would hear from the school boards. Commissioner Gordon said that this Schools and Land Use Council draft would come back for further work. She said that tonight the Schools and Land Use Council wanted to know if the boards were ready to give a thumbs upon the concept of the Schools APFO. She said that the details still needed to be worked out. Alex Zaffron said that he would not be ready to support the ordinance to deal with some of the issues because the details were not played out yet. 2. Secondary Benefits of Schools APFO: Craig Benedict said that the issue of reasonable student projections was one of the hardest issues to grapple with. Equitable funding is also an issue. The Schools APFO has a way of smoothing out the critical periods when spikes occur in school enrollment. He said that the projections for the next five years would be very specific because capital funding plans would depend on it. He said that a manageable database was being put together from the various jurisdictions. This information should be an the Internet within a year. This information will also be plugged into the comprehensive plan so the County can accommodate for the growth. He said that the growth pressures on the towns and the County have been laying in wait. He said that there was a certain degree of urgency because there were some large subdivisions coming to Orange County in the near future. He said that if Orange County gets ahead of all of the growth, it would be easier to manage and easier for the tax payers. Craig Benedict said that it is anticipated that there will be two memorandums of understanding that would be signed -one with Orange County, Hillsborough, Mebane, and the Orange County school district and the other with Chapel Hill, Carrbaro, Chapel Hill-Carrbaro school district, and Orange County. He said that there were really only two blanks within the entire ordinance. One question is the issue of over capacity in the schools. This issue will be sent back to the Schools and Land Use Council to work with the school districts. He said that capacity would not include having mobile classrooms. The other question deals with adopting the APFO into the Town's subdivision and zoning codes with the school districts actually being the administrator of the certificates of adequate public facilities. It is going to be a challenging task to keep track of the development that is occurring in the County. All of the information about potential subdivisions would have to be made readily available to the school district sa that they can issue a Certificate of Adequate Public Schools (CAPS}. The latter parts of the MOU indicate that it is not a mandate, but an interlocal agreement. If a party to the interlocal agreement wants out of it, there is no penalty clause. He said that it was the most progressive APFO in North Carolina. 3. School APFO Decision Matrix Craig Benedict said that this section shows where some of the decisions are centered in the Schools APFO. The two school districts will have to decide whether the level of service is per school or the capacities of all the schools put together. Chair Carey made reference to the level of service threshold and asked if it should only be decided by the school boards. Craig Benedict said that this level of service would primarily be decided by the school districts. The implications of building new schools when there are existing schools that are not at capacity would be an issue for the funding source, which is the County. Allen Spalt said that it seemed to him that the school districts should have the primary job of determining the point they consider themselves overcrowded. Craig Benedict said that most likely the people who do the student enrollment projections (school districts, County, towns, attorneys) may be part of the subgroup that makes decisions. Jackie Gist made reference to the enrollment projections and said that they seemed to be steady. She asked haw the University's growth had been figured into the enrollment projections. Craig Benedict said that the enrollment projections had not been done yet and the figures were hypothetical at this time. The University's growth will be factored into the student projections. Jackie Gist said that she had an overall uneasiness because it was cancerned mainly with what was good far schools. She said that the Town Council's primary concern was the good of the whole community. She is not opposed to the Schools APFO, but she thinks the issue of the schools overshadows how things have been written and researched. She said that she had not seen anything about the side effects or detriments of the Schools APFO. She is cancerned about the effect this will have on market forces. She would like to see more real research on haw it affects the community as a whole, including housing stack availability and housing affordability. Craig Benedict said that the MOU had an understanding in it that all of the parties would agree. He said that it was a cooperative agreement and same language could be added to say that all of the parties had to agree on the projections, etc. Jackie Gist said that she would like to see the issues of housing affordability and availability addressed. Alex Zaffron said that the hypothetical growth projections were linear and they did not account for the issue of spikes. He would like information on how the projections relate to some land use planning philosophies that have been adopted that would result in spikes and concentrated density to prevent sprawl. Craig Benedict said that this issue was discussed and was a concern of all the planners in the sub group. He said that larger scale development was not being discouraged. He said that there was sensitivity in the discussions to make sure that these regulations did not promote a pattern of growth that was not consistent with the land use plan. He can address these issues in the question and answer brochure. Joal Broun said that she would like to see some data with regards to the type of housing stock that developers develop after such an ordinance is put in place. She is concerned about affordable housing. Diana McDuffie said that she was not sharing the same concerns as her colleagues. She urged the boards not to put everything an this ordinance in terms of affecting affordable housing. Craig Benedict said that the promotion of larger scale development gives the towns and the County an opportunity to plug in an affordable housing component. Regarding the question about balancing the needs of the schools versus other needs of the County and the towns, he said that this issue has come up within the Schools and Land Use Council meetings. He said that if this ordinance smoothes out the educational needs, there is more of an opportunity to focus on the other issues in the County and towns. He said that he would put research together on the issues of affordable housing and housing types. Several questions were asked about the student projections and answered satisfactorily by Craig Benedict. Commissioner Gordon said that the situation at this time was that there was no long term planning or coordination. Therefore, as development comes on line, the Commissioners are supposed to come up with the funding for the schools. Generally, there is a bond referendum, and if it fails, then the schools go into over capacity. She said that the need for new schools was accelerating. She said that each board would make its own decision about the Schools APFO, and no one would force any board to do anything it did not want to do. Mark Sheridan said that the discussion tonight suggests that some additional focus should be put an what can be done cooperatively to moderate and check growth in the area. Jim Ward said that the Schools APFO was only indicating when the problem was going to come but did not address the problem of the inability to fund the schools. He agrees that there needs to be a way of moderating the growth. Craig Benedict said that the Schools APFO was a way of monitoring and synchronizing growth. He said that the ordinance did address the funding and student projection issues. He said that the enrollment in Orange County per year could be higher than Chapel Hill-Carrboro 20 years from now. Pat Evans asked if there was anything about the ordinance that encouraged growth further out from the urban areas. Craig Benedict said that the pattern and location of the growth was controlled by the land use and comprehensive plans of the towns and the County. He said that during the comprehensive plan process, the County would try to direct growth to where there are adequate public facilities. 4. School Site Needs Analysis (briefing by Chapel HiIIlCarrboro School District Craig Benedict talked about the limited opportunities of land acquisition for schools. Steve Scroggs said that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System perceived the need for having sites to build schools in the future. He showed four potential school sites on a map. Mark Dorosin asked if there was any consideration to build taller schools since the land was so scarce. Steve Scroggs said that there were certain state requirements that prohibited the placement of kindergarten, first grade, ar preschool aged children on the second floor of any classroom space. Several other questions about the potential school sites were answered satisfactorily. Craig Benedict explained the process of a developer obtaining a CAPS. Next Steps Craig Benedict explained the next steps: 1) include any additional comments heard tonight in a report to the Schools and Land Use Council with some additional information and research; 2) direct the Schools and Land Use Council and the staffs to work on the capacity level of service and the enrollment projections; and 3) give the Planning Director direction on whether he should move forward and begin talking to some developers, realtors, and citizens Allen Spalt said that the overall concept and the planning that has gone into this ordinance is impressive. He thinks it would be goad to go forward with this quickly and far the Planning Director to speak to outside groups about the broad concepts even if every detail is not yet settled. Kevin Foy asked if Craig Benedict was asking for something formal from the boards. Chair Carey said that the Assembly of Governments has never been adecision-making group. He said that unless there was violent objection, we would move forward. He asked Craig Benedict to explain what would happen if some of the jurisdictions participated and some did nat. Craig Benedict said that if the County were not interested in both documents it would fall apart because it is the funding mechanism. He said that there could be modifications to the agreement each year if the enrollment projections needed to be modified or if the level of service needed to be addressed again. He said that within a school district if one unit dropped out of the agreement, then the whole area would drop out. Jackie Gist said that she was interested in moving ahead, but she needs the information she has asked for. She really wants to understand how this ordinance is going to affect the market. Lee Pavao agrees that Craig Benedict should move forward with the ordinance. He said that there were still a lot of questions to be answered. Alex Zaffron agrees to move forward also. He said that he understands that it is unrealistic to nail down a capital investment plan at this point, but he would like to see some sort of realistically fundable program of school expansion. He said that if the current land use plans would generate needs that are nat fundable, then something has to give. Jim Ward would like clarification at some point about the issue of Chapel Hill and Carrboro being two distinct units as towns and one unit as a school district. It was the consensus of the Assembly of Governments to move forward with the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. 5. Adjournment With no further items to discuss, the meeting was adjourned. The next meeting will be held on April 4, 2000 at 7:30 p.m. in the F. Gordon Battle Courtroom in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Moses Carey, Jr., Chair Beverly A. Blythe, CMC