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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 09-19-2006-10aORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: September 19, 2006 Action Agenda Item No. ~ ~° ct SUBJECT: Consideration of Uses for County-Owned Portion of the Greene Tract DEPARTMENT: County Manager/ ERCD PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No ATTACHMENT(S): Greene Tract Concept Plan March 24, 2000 BOCC Letter Greene Tract Repayment Chart INFORMATION CONTACT: Rod Visser, 919-245-2300 David Stancil, 919-245-2590 PURPOSE: To receive a staff report on the 60-acre portion of the former Greene Tract, owned by Orange County. BACKGROUND: In 2000, as part of the "Agreement for Solid Waste Management" between Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro transferring solid waste responsibilities to Orange County, the title to a 60-acre portion of the 164-acre Greene Tract was identified and conveyed to Orange County. The remaining 104 acres continue to be held in common ownership by the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro and Orange County, In 2001-2002, a work group of elected officials created a Greene Tract Concept Plan to identify uses for the 104 acres of jointly-owned land. This work resulted in a June 2002 concept plan map and resolution that was adopted by each of the jurisdictions. This map and resolution identify areas far open space and affordable housing. As part of the deliberations involved in this project, the County was asked about its intentions for its adjoining 60 acres.. The County's only statement on the potential future uses of the 60-acres came in a memorandum to Chapel Hill Mayor Rosemary Waldorf dated March 24, 2000. This memo predates the Greene Tract work group and concept plan of 2001-2002.. The memorandum contains the following statement: "With regard to the 60~acre Greene Tract designation,,,This area was selected after considerable discussion and review of the site characteristics, and offers an opportunity to preserve important hardwood forest areas on the tract while also providing for possible rail line access to the southeast.: It is the intent of the current Board of Commissioners that this sixty acres remain undisturbed," During the Greene Tract Work Group, the question of the County's plans for its 60 acres arose, and on each occasion the above citation was referenced as the County's only official statement on the topic, Since that time, plans have slowly moved forward on the next steps for the Greene Tract, the first of which was a conservation easement to be placed on the 86-acres of "open space" that is jointly held, Progress toward this easement renewed in earnest in 2005, with Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC) asked about its interest in being afourth-party easement holder for the 86- acres of open space, to ensure long-term protection. After site visits to the property and several meetings with staff, the TLC Land Committee has recommended approval of holding an easement on the 86-acres.. However, the committee also recommended that the 60 acres owned by Orange County should be protected (either through inclusion in a separate easement or by formal inclusion in the County's Lands Legacy Program), The TLC Board of Directors met on May 17 and considered the proposed easement, The TLC Board then adopted a resolution, as follows: The Board of Directors supports TLC's partiripafion in the Greene) tract transaction conditional upon: 1, the parties placing conservation easements on the jointly owned parcel OR agreeing to give up the development rights on the parcels,° 2, Orange County agreeing to place their contiguous parcel into conservation,° and 3, the government entities covering all transaction and stewardship costs. If potential risks are discovered with regards to the landfill, TLC will take appropriate measures to deal with the situation and reassess the project, Related to the final note, the TLC Board also asked its staff to investigate further any issues related to the property's adjacency to a landfill, The 60-acres transferred to the County in 2000 were selected for dual purposes of protecting open space and hardwood forest areas, and providing for some passible future solid waste ancillary activities along the rail line, A factor related to the formal protection of these 60 acres (and the 86 acres in the jointly-held portion) is that the use of the Greene Tract for non-solid waste purposes is the triggering mechanism far repayment of the Greene Tract purchase price to the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund, This cost is the purchase price plus interest, which has accrued since 1984. The attached chart illustrates the cast of this repayment for both the County and Town portions of the jointly owned land and the County's 60 acres, The Board has not yet considered the funding sources or funding timetable for this repayment. The Greene Tract is tentatively slated for discussion at the September 21 Assembly of Governments meeting. FINANCIAL IMPACT: As noted in the attached repayment chart, the financial implications of officially designating the 60 acres far non-solid waste purposes are significant. This action will trigger repayment to the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund of at least $533,468, with the exact amount of interest to be determined based on the ultimate repayment payment schedules, That schedule, and funding sources for the County's portion of the repayment, has not yet been established. It is important to note that the repayment may occur over time, the duration of which may be determined by the Board. An additional amount will need to be repaid by the County and Towns (as shown on the attached chart) once the official disposition of the remaining jointly-held lands for open space and affordable housing is decided. If a conservation easement with TLC is placed on this joint open space and/or the County's 60 acres, there will likely be a request for a stewardship endowment for the long-term cast of monitoring„ The amount of this stewardship endowment is unknown at this time. If the County agrees to enroll its 60 acres in the Lands Legacy Program (to be formalized by a mechanism to be discussed at a future work session), there would be no stewardship endowment and the costs of monitoring would be addressed by Lands Legacy. RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends that the Board receive this report as information and provide direction to staff on: a) the future use of the 60 acres, b) how to proceed with official designation of the 60 acres. Greene Tract Concept Plan Approved by the Greene Tract Workgroup, 6126!02 ' ~ Landfill i D (Inactive) / ~ Landfill (Active) 4 9 I\ sewer IJne Sewer Une p Parcels :~~„ Siruqures ^" Orange County tantl tantl Usa i::z~ Atfortlable Horsing 78.19 Arne Open Space &5.99 Acres A Neville Tract C i~ ~~. J 1 ~ ' t~' O ~ ` ~' I m, N e~~ u ^. 300 0 300 600 Feet ~ n Homestead Park Orange County Environment & Resource Conservation Department June 27 2002 B. Young 5 March 24, 2000 The Honorable Rosemary Waldorf, Mayor Town of Chapel Hill .306 N. Columbia Street Chapel Hill, NC .27514 Dear Rosemary: At our meeting on March 21, 2000, the Orange County Board of Conunissioners completed discussions on the recent biological and cultural surveys of the Greene pact, and reached a conclusion on the 60 acres of the tract to be transferred to the County under the proposed interlocal solid waste agreement. Previously, at our- meeting on March 14, 2000, the Board of Commissioners approved an amendment to that agreement that removed rezoning of a 60-acre portion of the Greene Tract as a condition for transfer of solid waste management responsibility to the County. hi addition, at the regular meeting on March 21, 2000, the Board unanimously approved a resolution "to withdraw Orange County's support for the rezoning request" for the Greene tract.. The minutes of the meeting will reflect this action, and County Attorney Geoffrey Gledhill has determined that this action is sufficient to document the County's position on this matter. With our actions on these issues, we have tried to maintain the momentum that we have all worked so hard to achieve during the past year towards completing Che reorganization of the solid waste management structure in Orange County. Our target now for the handover of solid waste responsibility is Monday, April 17. In order to meet that timeline under the provisions of the amendment to the interlocal agreement we have approved, there would also need to Ue agreement from the governing boards of Carrboro and Chapel Hill by Macroh .31 to the delineation of 60 acres of the Greene Tract and to the interlocal agreement amendment. As we understand it, these are the only remaining policy decisions needed to complete the transfer from the Town of Chapel Hill to Orange County.. The reason for the lag between final decisions by the three governing boards and the effective date of the transfer is Yhat County staff will need aC least one full two-week pay period to arrange pay and benefits enrollment, and to carry out related administrative actions necessary to transfer the Solid Waste Department staff from Chapel Hill to Orange County employment. If either or both the municipal governing boards ace unable to reach agreement with the County on the 60-acre designation and the amendment to the interlocal agreement by March .31, then we will revise the target date for handover to the start of the subsequent County pay period, which is May 1. With regard to the 60-acre Greene Tract designation, Map I (attached) shows the area that Orange County would like to have transferred to County ownership. This area was selected after considerable discussion and review of site characteristics, and offers an opportunity to preserve important hardwood forest areas on the tract while also providing for possible rail line access to Che southeast. It is the intent of the current Board of Conmmissioners Chat this sixty acres remain undisturbed. We have also attached two additional maps showing the general location of the most significant biological areas from the Biological Resources Surroey (Map 2) and a map illustrating the potential for wildlife coridors on the property (Map .3). In Making this action, the Board agreed by unanimous motion on two components of its vision for the entire Greene tract: • When we decide the uses of the Greene tract, we should consider its strategic location in many contexts -especially in terms of open space to the north (Duke Forest) and greenways and parks to the south (Booker Creek Greenway/Homestead Park and Bolin Creel< Greenway) - and by to integrate the pact with the surrounding wildlife corridors, parks, and other open space. Based on the Triangle Land Conservancy inventory and the Wildlife Corridor Study, and in concurrence with the Town of Chapel Hill's resolution on parkland preservation for the Greene tract, the total tract should be preserved as open space and protected to the greatest extent possible. That includes preservation of the important natrual areas, especially significant hardwood forest areas. These areas contain the most suitable areas for potential habitat, and include both upland and bottomland hardwood forests. Furthermore, The Greene tract is the headwaters of the Bolin Creek, Booker Creels, and New Hope Creek (Old Field Creek) basins,. Please feel free to contact me or County staff if you have ariy questions. We look forward to completing the actions needed for the County to assume solid waste management responsibility, and to collaborating with you soon in discussions about the future disposition of the remainder of the Greene tract. Sincerely, Moses Carey, Jr. Chair, Orange County Commissioners Attachments Map 1 - "Proposed Orange County 60-Acre Transfer" Map 2 -Primary Natural Areas Map .3 -Potential Wildlife Corridor/Greenway Connections Agreement to Amend the Agreement for Solid Waste Management Prepared 0411 /06 E~~~~~~ E~ ~~~~~~~ 9 ~ti~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~P~~ ~&' ~®~~ ~~ Under the interlocal "Agreement for Solid Waste Management", the term °heimbursement Amount" is defined as follows: (I) ur the case of disposition to a North Carolina local government that is also a Party, so long as (hat government devotes the 6'ansfen'ed portion to public purposes, (a) .5608,823, being the original purcl'iase price of the Greene Traci, multiplied (h) by a fraction, the numerator of which rs the number of whole acres of the Greene Tract being disposed and the denominator of which is 169. plus (c) uncompounded interest on the product of (a} and (b) at the aru~ual rate of 6.00°o from March 3Q 1934 to the effective date of any disposition, and (2) in the case of any other disposition. the greater of either (a) the Reimbursement Flmount fo a North Carolina local government that is also a Party, or (b) the net /.proceeds of a sale after the costs of the sale arm paid , if one were to assume that the June 2002 recommendations of the Greene Tract Work Group were implemented, with conservation easements recorded sometime during FY 2006-07 on both jointly owned property and on the County's GO acres, and with alump- sum payment due date of July 1, 2007, the total reimbursement amount would be approximately; Original Purchase Price $608,823 Annual Interest at G% uncompounded 36,530 Total Interest (23 years 3 months) 849,322 "s`otai Reimbursement Ar7ount X1,458,145 The respective shares of the local governments in making reimbursements to the Solid Waste/Landfill Operations Enterprise Fund would be approximately (based on the ach.rel surveyed acreage of 'I G4, rather than the 109 acres cited in the interlocal agreeir~ent): ' Principal Interest Total Entire Greene Traci 164 acres 8608,823 8849,322 S1,458, 145 Orange County GO acres 222,741 310,727 533,468 deeded portion Orange County interest 43% of 104 acres 1 GG,015 231,596 397,611 in remainder Chapel Nill interest in 43"/<~ of 104 acres 166;015 231,596 397,611 remainder Carrboro interest in 14% of 104 acres 54,052 75,403 129,455 remainder if the local governments were to agree that reimbursement payments should be spread out over a period of several years, that might make annual budget planning easier than having to budget for one large reimbursement payment. Spreading payments could be structured to provide necessary cash to the enterprise fund for future major capital expenditures (e g. a transfer station), while easing the burden on Town and County General Funds The County and Town Managers and staffs can collaborate to produce a recommendation for payback over amulti-year period, for future Board discussion