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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOCPB minutes 071013Approved 9/4/13 1 MINUTES 1 ORANGE COUNTY PLANNING BOARD 2 JULY 10, 2013 3 REGULAR MEETING 4 5 MEMBERS PRESENT: Peter Hallenbeck (Chair), Cheeks Township Representative; Stephanie O’Rourke, Eno 6 Township Representative; Buddy Hartley, Little River Township Representative; Tony Blake, Bingham Township 7 Representative; Herman Staats, At-Large, Cedar Grove Township; James Lea, Cedar Grove Township 8 Representative; Andrea Rohrbacher, At-Large Chapel Hill Township; Paul Guthrie, At-Large Chapel Hill Township 9 10 11 MEMBERS ABSENT: Lisa Stuckey, Chapel Hill Township Representative; Maxecine Mitchell, At-Large Bingham 12 Township; Rachel Hawkins, Hillsborough Township Representative; Johnny Randall, At-Large Chapel Hill Township; 13 14 15 16 STAFF PRESENT: Craig Benedict, Planning Director; Michael Harvey, Current Planning Supervisor; Perdita Holtz, 17 Special Projects Coordinator; Ashley Moncado, Special Projects Planner; Tina Love, Administrative Assistant II 18 19 20 AGENDA ITEM 1: CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL 21 22 23 AGENDA ITEM 2: INFORMATIONAL ITEMS 24 a) Planning Calendar for July and August 25 b) BOCC Approved Legal Ad for September 9 Quarterly Public Hearing 26 27 28 AGENDA ITEM 3: APPROVAL OF MINUTES 29 JUNE 5, 2013 30 31 MOTION by Tony Blake to approve the June 5, 2013 Planning Board minutes. Seconded by Buddy Hartley. 32 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 33 34 35 AGENDA ITEM 4: CONSIDERATION OF ADDITIONS TO AGENDA 36 37 38 AGENDA ITEM 5: PUBLIC CHARGE 39 40 Introduction to the Public Charge 41 The Board of County Commissioners, under the authority of North Carolina General Statute, 42 appoints the Orange County Planning Board (OCPB) to uphold the written land development 43 laws of the County. The general purpose of OCPB is to guide and accomplish coordinated and 44 harmonious development. OCPB shall do so in a manner which considers the present and 45 future needs of its citizens and businesses through efficient and responsive process that 46 contributes to and promotes the health, safety, and welfare of the overall County. The OCPB 47 will make every effort to uphold a vision of responsive governance and quality public services 48 during our deliberations, decisions, and recommendations. 49 50 PUBLIC CHARGE 51 The Planning Board pledges to the citizens of Orange County its respect. The Board asks its 52 citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the Board and with 53 fellow citizens. At any time, should any member of the Board or any citizen fail to observe this 54 Approved 9/4/13 2 public charge, the Chair will ask the offending member to leave the meeting until that individual 55 regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored, the Chair will recess the meeting 56 until such time that a genuine commitment to this public charge is observed. 57 58 59 AGENDA ITEM 6: CHAIR COMMENTS 60 61 Introduction of new members. 62 63 64 Agenda Item 7: ORANGE COUNTY DEVELOPMENT REVIEW PROCESS – To receive an educational presentation 65 of the various types of development review processes used in the County’s Unified 66 Development Ordinance (UDO) 67 Presenter: Michael Harvey, Current Planning Supervisor 68 69 70 Michael Harvey: We have talked about permitted uses. This is intended to give an education about our permitting 71 processes we have. This serves as a catalyst for future meetings about how we can revise the existing process to 72 address some concerns. Reviewed permitted processes. 73 74 Tony Blake: How do numbers three and four differ from spot zoning? 75 76 Michael Harvey: Because the courts say they don’t represent spot zoning. Contract zoning is what people claim 77 but there are requirements that the proposed use is consistent with the goals and policies of the Comprehensive 78 Plan. The Board makes the decision on if that is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. On page 23, you will 79 find Attachment 1 which is a summary chart of the various development processes. On page 24, you will find the 80 review procedures from our Unified Development Ordinance. On page 25, Attachment 2 is a preparative process 81 chart looking at how it is done in Durham, Wake and Chatham County. As a Board, we would like direction on 82 options that you believe would be essential to modify the process to eliminate unnecessary loss of time. One 83 suggestion was, can’t the Planning Board hold its own public hearing and report to the elected officials, which is 84 something that you need to review and determine as to what your comfort level is. 85 86 James Lea: Can you tell me the difference between Conditional Use and Conditional Zoning? 87 88 Michael Harvey: The Conditional Use involves the development of a specific land use for a given parcel of property 89 where that land use may not be allowed under the current zoning designation so we will look at a site specific 90 development plan posing that one specific use. The property would be rezoned and you would be asked to 91 approve that specific use. Conditional Zoning, as detailed in the UDO, has specific Conditional Zoning districts that 92 allow for a myriad of different uses. 93 94 Pete Hallenbeck: The companion document to the UDO is the Comprehensive Plan which is the heart and soul 95 and why and general goals of the county. 96 97 98 Agenda Item 8: Home Occupations – To make a presentation on existing home occupation regulations, 99 information on how some other local governments handle the topic, and discuss Planning 100 Board member’s ideas on potential amendments. This topic is included in the UDO’s 101 “Implementation Bridge” as a topic for further evaluation and is an Interest Area for some 102 Planning Board members. 103 Presenter: Ashley Moncado, Special Projects Planner 104 105 Ashley Moncado: The purpose of this item is to review existing home occupations standards to address Planning 106 Board’s areas of interest form the January Planning Board meeting as well as the Implementation Bridge in order to 107 determine if existing standards may or may not need to be revised. 108 Approved 9/4/13 3 Ashley reviewed the existing standards for home occupations in the UDO under Section 5.5.3. then proceeded with 109 reviewing home occupations standards from other local communities in order to determine the next steps. 110 111 Paul Guthrie: What is telecommunications, a person who is employed as a consultant that does all their work by 112 telecommunications, is that under this ordinance? 113 114 Michael Harvey: We have approved home occupations depending on the proposed activity. If someone is truly 115 doing something at the house with the only rationale behind it is that if the neighbors complain, we can legitimately 116 say they obtained the appropriate permit. 117 118 Paul Guthrie: What about artist’s studios that don’t have walk in business but produce? 119 120 Michael Harvey: We have permitted art studios. The biggest complaint is they feel they deserve to have more 121 space and we treat every home occupation the same. 122 123 Pete Hallenbeck: My answer would be that you are employed by someone else and you happen to work at home. 124 The artist is a home business and they are the business owner and they are working at home, that would be the 125 distinction. 126 127 Paul Guthrie: We need to think very broadly about what we are trying to do and what our definitions are or you may 128 spend the full time permitting or helping permit 30,000 home businesses in Orange County. 129 130 Pete Hallenbeck: I would agree with that. 131 132 Ashley Moncado continued presentation. 133 134 Pete Hallenbeck: This comment is from the time I spent on the Efland Small Planning Area and this subject came 135 up a lot. The Efland area had this overlay put onto it. The goal was that Efland is the County’s Town. It is not 136 incorporated but has water, sewer, it can do denser development. There was lot of discussion about what defines 137 home business and one distinction was the concept of professional services and the poster child for thinking about 138 this was the difference between someone who wanted a barber shop and someone who had an engineering 139 consultation firm. The barber shop would have “anyone” come down with a lot of traffic and the engineer would 140 have a lot less traffic. There was some reluctance to try to qualify that one too much but it was a good example 141 down a private road where you could get neighbors riled up. My comments are, the two person limit, I would like to 142 see changed to three but I realize some people don’t like that. I would also see the concept that you could have 143 two people and a third person up to a year. You’ve got a business and it is growing, you hire the third person and 144 keep them for a year, it is time to get a place of business. The square footage limit; Orange County has a 500 145 square foot limit but Chapel Hill has a 750 foot. Orange County could go to 750 and it wouldn’t be too bad. The 146 deliveries limit, I just don’t get, I understand some people love to shop so there will be deliveries. I don’t see a 147 reason to have a limit. The parking is good. Basically you have to have enough room for the employees. I would 148 like to see a set of standard that can be applied for rural districts (R1), rural areas of the county that might be 149 different than the municipalities. 150 151 Paul Gutherie: You don’t mean municipalities? Basically, we are talking largely about outside municipal limits. 152 153 Pete Hallenbeck: Yes. I would also put the rural buffer in with the municipalities just because there is lot in the 154 UDO giving the rural buffer more protection. The idea is to avoid urban sprawl. It is difficult to start listing 155 professions. 156 157 Stephanie O’Rourke: My first thought is about the employees’ requirement. How do you determine that? We have 158 a business but we would only have two or three onsite. 159 160 Michael Harvey: On site. You could have 100 employees but only have two onsite. 161 162 Approved 9/4/13 4 Tony Blake: I agree with Pete on the square footage. I think 500 feet is restrictive. The number of employees is if 163 you have three, you are sort of allowing the seasonal businesses to take advantage of that. As far as deliveries, I 164 think you need to be able to handle the truck size. The accessory structure is the one place I see as the difference 165 between the rural buffer and zoning, etc. You could technically say a farm is a home business. You could word 166 that so that the 1,000 foot square limit was just inside certain zones. 167 168 Buddy Hartley: The square footage, I don’t see why Orange County has 500 and Chapel Hill has 750. Maybe we 169 need to have a difference between a rural and the inside where you a larger development site. If it is in a 170 development you could have problems with the home owner’s association. 171 172 Craig Benedict: This would be no means preempt a home owner’s association if the HOA has restrictions. 173 174 Pete Hallenbeck: If you have more than 1,000 square feet of product things are going pretty well. That may be 175 where the limit of visitors can be used. 176 177 Craig Benedict: We understand these entrepreneurs starting a small business in their house and we have been 178 complaining we don’t have places for the small business to move to. We hope they grow out of this into the 2,000 179 square foot strip center, etc. 180 181 Andrea Rohrbacher: The challenges that I faced in Chapel Hill in a residential neighborhood was a woman that ran 182 mediation classes. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night, there were 10 cars lined up on the street. 183 That became burdensome. 184 185 Pete Hallenbeck: That speaks to the number of visitors and onsite parking. 186 187 Tony Blake: It also speaks to hours of business. 188 189 Stephanie O’Rourke: How would you differentiate if they were having a Wednesday night ladies night? 190 191 Andrea Rohrbacher: I think it was because this was three nights a week. In the Chapel Hill ordinance, some way 192 that you can have an art studio with power, running water but there is something in there that was specifically 193 targeting student housing that it wasn’t a livable structure. They wanted to avoid someone building a 750 foot 194 structure to rent to a couple of students. 195 196 Michael Harvey: If you apply for home occupation, there are standards we use to see if efficiency apartment 197 applies. 198 199 Andrea Rohrbacher: What do we allow as identification if it was a consulting type business. 200 201 Pete Hallenbeck: If you’re a consultant, you don’t need a sign. Review the signage. 202 203 Andrea Rohrbacher: What about daycares? 204 205 Michael Harvey: Daycares is not a home occupation, it is a separate permitting process. 206 207 Stephanie O’Rourke: Wouldn’t the homeowners association or the restrictive covenants be over that? 208 209 Craig Benedict: Also the parking code. 210 211 Andrea Rohrbacher: I would not want to go over three employees. 212 213 Tony Blake: Three includes the resident as well? 214 215 Michael Harvey: You can’t have more than two employees that don’t live at the residence. 216 Approved 9/4/13 5 217 Andrea Rohrbacher: I don’t have any feeling about square footage, going to 750 would be good. 218 219 James Lea: Most of them have already been covered. 220 221 Herman Staats: Is a farm covered as a home occupation? 222 223 Perdita Holtz: Farms are exempt from zoning regulations. 224 225 Herman Staats: Are there specs that guide the private roads maintenance agreement? 226 227 Pete Hallenbeck: If you have a place that has three, four or five homes on the road and there is a legal agreement 228 about how to pay for the road maintenance then basically, we don’t want this agreement to force a single house 229 with a long driveway to do something. 230 231 Herman Staats: Is there an exemption that all these things can be dealt with on a case by case basis. 232 233 Craig Benedict: There has to be clarity on what is exempt and what is not. Various criteria, it is so tight that there 234 is not too many ways to make it through. We need to mention what is clearly exempt by definition. 235 236 Perdita Holtz: If you wanted to allow more intensive home occupation, you could think about a Class B permit. 237 238 Paul Guthrie: My comment is a home business, you may get two times you can exceed the number of people. 239 This county would be decimated if you followed the language in this draft. Think very carefully about what you 240 write. This is running against the grain. Is there any exemption for doctors and lawyers? 241 242 Michael Harvey: We have doctors that work out of the house. 243 244 Paul Gutherie: How many things will you have to process? You are trying to liberalize something that has not been 245 enforced so I hope you have a good idea about where the work load will go. 246 247 248 249 AGENDA ITEM 9: COMMITTEE/ADVISORY BOARD REPORTS 250 251 a) Board of Adjustment 252 b) Orange Unified Transportation 253 254 255 AGENDA ITEM 10: ADJOURNMENT 256 257 MOTION: made by Paul Guthrie to adjourn. Seconded by Tony Blake. 258 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 259 260 ________________________________________ Pete Hallenbeck, Chair