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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 20041007APPROVED 11!3!2004 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS COMPREHENSIVE PLAN LAND USE ELEMENT WORK SESSION OCTOBER 7, 2004 7:30 p.m. The Orange County Board of Commissioners met for a Work Session on Thursday, October 7, 2004 at 7:30 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Barry Jacobs and Commissioners Margaret Brown and Alice M. Gordon COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: Stephen Halkiatis and Moses Carey, Jr. COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: Geoffrey Gledhill, Sean Borhanian COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager John M. Link, Jr. and Deputy Clerk to the Board David Hunt (All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE Chair Jacobs said that Commissioner Carey was unable to attend because of a family emergency and Commissioner Halkiotis was out of town. 1. Reconfirmation of BOCC Goals -priorities anchoring the Land Use Element Update Craig Benedict said that this meeting was based on an August 23rd joint meeting with the Planning Board about the progress of outreach with the Land Use Plan Element Update. He would like to discuss what was learned through the public outreach and haw to achieve some of the goals. He briefly went over the agenda. He introduced the Planning Board members in attendance: Sam Lasris, Craufurd Goodwin, Brian Dobbins, and Renee Price. He made reference to pages 15 and 16, which is the list of BOCC adopted goals. Part of the land use plan will be addressing some of these goals. Some of these goals include growth and development impacts analysis, natural resources, rural character, sustainability, transfer of development rights, water resource quantity and quality, and watershed protection. He explained a land use plan, which is a development pattern to guide growth. He showed a map with designations far rural, municipal and extraterritorial jurisdictions, and urban areas. The purpose of the plan is to define what rural development and urban development will look like in the designated areas. 2. Land Use Element Update Initiatives/Sustainability a. Urban-rural boundaries and Rural Activity Nodes This information is on the blue handout. Craig Benedict said that in 2443 a growth management strategy was put together. The rural areas are to promote lower intensity development, to protect farmland, and preserve water and environmental resources. The urban areas are to have an intensity threshold to promote mass transit and a healthy economic environment {jobs and services}. b. Watershed protection -surface water and groundwater Craig Benedict said that being able to lower density in certain areas to protect the quality of surface water is very important. The groundwater level also needs to be protected. Lowering density can protect this as well as low-impact design. This is a way to keep the water on-site as long as possible through retention areas and peak flow management. Orange County is fortunate to have headwater resources, in that there are no rivers that flow from one side of the County through to the other side; they all start in Orange County. c. Air quality d. Upen spacelminimum lot size e. Economics and equity Craig Benedict said that the majority of the air pollution in the County comes as a result of vehicle miles traveled. It is not an industrial area. Putting development where there are opportunities for mass transit and reducing development farther away from transit corridors will help reduce the amount of traffic from development. Craig Benedict shaved a chart comparing growth scenarios. He also pointed out the densities in different areas of the County on a map. Craig Benedict said that if the County moves toward a one unit per three-acre density in these areas, it is not lowering the density as much as the Upper Neuse River Basin technical report said. The staff suggests lowering the density to one unit per three acres and having low-impact design standards to manage the peak flow, which would reduce phosphorous and nitrogen release from development sites. This could probably achieve the same water quality goals as lowering density to one unit per five acres. Commissioner Brawn asked why they would not just lower the density to one unit per five acres and why they would diminish the recommendations from the Neuse River. She said that, as time goes on, people do things to their property, which would mean that the low-impact efforts would be lost to some degree. Craig Benedict said that the sedimentation and erosion control division in his department has been focused on construction and monitoring sediment. Mare recently, they have been looking at water quality issues. He thinks there has to be a move to being mare oriented toward storm water management. Chair Jacobs asked about calculations on average lot size, excluding ten-acre lots. Craig Benedict said that lot sizes are averaging 2.5 acres. The soils in portions of the County are not good for septic systems, which is why those areas are less dense. Commissioner Brawn made reference to the original goals and the idea of air quality, traffic, groundwater, watershed protection and the cast of supplying services. She said that on the other side, we are taking the Neuse River and not using the State's highest recommendations, but using this mixture. She said that these recommendations are probably the absolute minimum for watershed protection. She asked if both could be done. She said that it seemed that the staff was using the comments from the public meetings to make the determination to modify these goals. She does not think there is a balance because there are too many people in the County that want protection. She thinks this is a very significant modification from the comments of these very small groups of people. John Link said that he encouraged Craig Benedict to provide the options and it is not entirely based on the public meetings. Commissioner Brown said that many of the people that attend the meetings have no understanding of what the issues are. The public education piece is very important. She said that a few people in the County {developers and a few property owners} are very opposed to zoning or land use planning, and they tend to drum up some very erroneous understandings about haw this might impact them, and they are the ones that come to the meetings. She will stand for the people in the County that are very concerned about the water quality. Many of these people will never come to public meetings. Commissioner Gordon said that she does not think that the Board ever confirmed the goals. She also could not figure out which set of goals in the packet the Commissioners were to supposed to reconfirm. She asked for mare clarity and thoroughness. She would like to see the goals and the objectives of the goals written out in full sentences. She would like to see a document that states all of the goals, including the ones from the Comprehensive Plan Land Use Committee (CPLUC}. If goals have been deleted, she would like to know why. She made reference to page nine and suggested saying "water resources protection" rather than "watershed protection", because watershed does not bring up the issue of groundwater. She asked that a list of all the goals and an explanation of any deletions be prepared by staff and brought back to the Commissioners for approval. She said that she is not ready to go forward with this. Commissioner Brawn said that she thought the public comment and going on the road had already taken place and recommendations were coming back to the County Commissioners. She asked about the process. Commissioner Gordon said that she meant proceeding forward to public hearing She thinks the statement of the goals needs to be more systematic. Chair Jacobs said that the Board should determine if this is ready for public hearing. Commissioner Brown said that the affordable housing issue came up in the public meetings, and she thinks it needs to be understood that there is an affordable housing program in the County. The understanding is that the higher the density, the more affordable the housing will be, and this is an erroneous nation. She thinks they should go back to the original goals, which would steady and balance what the new land use plan is trying to accomplish. Discussion ensued on affordable housing. Chair Jacobs said that part of what was heard at the public meetings was that people were afraid they were getting priced out of Orange County because of the cost of land and housing. The Board can clarify how it is addressing the issue of affordable housing. Craig Benedict said that he would take the Board's comments and try to weave a matrix. He asked the Board far the top five guiding principles. Commissioner Gordon stated again that she could not find in the agenda packet a definitive list of goals to be reconfirmed. She is also concerned that it is not clear what the principles are. Since the Board did not get this information in a timely manner, she does not want to figure this out this evening. She asked the staff to get the information together, including goals from the CPLUC, and give the Board time to review it. Commissioner Brawn made reference to page 21 and said that it could be easily narrowed dawn to six. She said that one and six were virtually the same. She said that 2, 3, and 13 could be put in the same goal. Several others can be combined to make only six goals. Commissioner Brawn said that people need to understand the efforts and existing programs put in place to address these issues. Chair Jacobs said the following goals from page 21 could be combined: 1 and 6; 2, 3, and 13; 4 and 7; 5 and 9; 8 stands alone; and 11 and 12. Chair Jacobs agreed that it would be good to have a definitive statement. Cammissianer Gordan said that she does not agree that there should necessarily be five, six, or seven principles. There might need to be more. She would be willing to categorize the goals, but not narrow them down to five or six tonight . She recalled that the CPLUC goal statements had quite a few points under each goal . Chair Jacobs said that a starting point for discussion would be the CPLUC goals with an explanation of haw they were derived. If staff thinks it can be narrowed dawn to five or six guiding principles, then the Board can discuss this. Cammissianer Brown said that sustainability should be listed because it keeps coming up. Commissioner Gordon asked Craig Benedict to came up with one list of goals with the definitions. She would like to leave open how the goals are consolidated into principles. Chair Jacobs agreed and said that the principles could be called sustainable land use guiding principles or something of that nature. Commissioner Brawn made reference to the four map options and said that she felt constricted by them. Craig Benedict noted that all the options included rural activity Hades. Craig Benedict gave a detailed explanation of rural activity nodes. Chair Jacobs said that the rural activity nodes have never been discussed, since he has been on the Planning Board or the Board of County Commissioners. This would be a good issue to discuss. Commissioner Gordon said that the rural activity nodes have been defined and they are supposed to be places where there are rural scale enterprises. It was a long process to decide their locations on the existing land use plan. Commissioner Gordon made reference to the blue areas on the growth management system map, which are transition areas or urbanizing areas. She thinks the urbanizing areas should be left there and not deleted. Craig Benedict said that the designation of the transition areas would be left on the maps. Where there is a zoning overlay on the maps, the areas have been designated as urbanizing areas sa they do not get lost. Commissioner Brown would still like to see more options. She would like to see what was said in the Upper Neuse Watershed Management Plan. Craig Benedict said that there is an executive summary an page 26 of the package. Commissioner Gordon said that when this is presented it should be clear which areas could have increased density if certain performance standards were met. She made reference to the possibility of working with Durham County, with respect to protecting their water supply watershed. Chair Jacobs said that they should at least write a letter to Durham County and Hillsborough stating that the County is working with OWASA to help protect the watershed that supplies their water, and that there be some kind of reciprocal arrangement. Commissioner Gordon asked Craig Benedict if he was intending that the towns would take in mare density if the County reduces density. Craig Benedict said no. The rural area development is exhibiting a sprawl pattern of growth. He said that resolving what could happen in the rural areas is important in achieving a lot of goals. He does not think that towns should be asked to increase density. The urban areas could be discussed with the towns. Chair Jacobs made reference to the Upper Neuse River study and the maps and said that they could be presented by saying that these are the alternative ways of constructing land use that the study proposed. The Board will ultimately choose the best permutation. Discussion ensued on how best to ask Durham County and Hillsborough to participate in water quality protection. Commissioner Gordan asked for modifications of these maps for the County Commissioners. Since they have not decided on the maps to ga to public hearing, they should have time to review and approve the maps. 3. Watershed Technical Studies -Upper Neuse Vllatershed Management Plan 4a. orange CountylTown of Hillsborough Urban Transition Area Task Force Craig Benedict said that this group had its first meeting. There is a brief excerpt on page 31. The next meeting is October 20tH Chair Jacobs said that he could try to write a letter by that time to Hillsborough about working together on protecting the watershed that supplies their water. 4b. Efland/Mebane Small Area Plan Craig Benedict said that when there is a critical mass of applications, they would come back to the County Commissioners for the formation of this group. 5. Rural Character and Farmland Protection Work Group Update The Planning Baard and two members of the Agricultural Preservation Board have been talking about what is happening in the rural areas and haw to preserve the farm economy and have rural development that still preserves open space and environmental resources. The work group has met three or four times. The group has spent a lat of time on clustering. Craig Benedict explained the different issues this work group is working on. Commissioner Gordon asked about the work product of this group. Jay Bryan said that the goal was to bring a report to the Planning Board recommending a series of tools to protect rural character and preserve farmland. 6. Public Hearing Notification Requirements 7. Timeline/Next Steps This will be brought back at a future County Commissioners' meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 9:35 p.m. Barry Jacobs, Chair David Hunt Deputy Clerk to the Baard