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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOCPB minutes 010814Approved 2/5/14 1 MINUTES 1 ORANGE COUNTY PLANNING BOARD 2 JANUARY 8, 2014 3 REGULAR MEETING 4 5 6 MEMBERS PRESENT: Peter Hallenbeck (Chair), Cheeks Township Representative; Maxecine Mitchell, At-Large 7 Bingham Township; James Lea, Cedar Grove Township Representative; Herman Staats, At-Large, Cedar Grove 8 Township; Paul Guthrie, At-Large Chapel Hill Township; Buddy Hartley, Little River Township Representative; Tony 9 Blake, Bingham Township Representative; Johnny Randall, At-Large Chapel Hill Township; 10 11 12 MEMBERS ABSENT: Lisa Stuckey, Chapel Hill Township Representative; Andrea Rohrbacher, At-Large Chapel Hill 13 Township; Vacant- Hillsborough Township Representative; Vacant – Eno Township Representative 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 Pete Hallenbeck called the meeting to order. 23 24 AGENDA ITEM 2: ELECTION OF CHAIR AND VICE-CHAIR FOR 2014 25 26 Buddy Hartley: I think Pete has done an excellent job. 27 28 MOTION by Buddy Hartley to elect Pete Hallenbeck as Planning Board Chair. Seconded by Tony Blake. 29 MOTION by Buddy Hartley to elect Lisa Stuckey as Planning Board Vice-Chair. Seconded by Tony Blake. 30 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 31 32 33 AGENDA ITEM 3: INFORMATIONAL ITEMS 34 a) Planning Calendar for January and February. 35 36 37 AGENDA ITEM 4: APPROVAL OF MINUTES 38 DECEMBER 4, 2013 REGULAR MEETING 39 40 MOTION by Tony Blake to approve the December 4, 2013 Planning Board and ORC notes with correction. Seconded 41 by Buddy Hartley. 42 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 43 44 45 AGENDA ITEM 5: CONSIDERATION OF ADDITIONS TO AGENDA 46 47 48 AGENDA ITEM 6: PUBLIC CHARGE 49 50 Introduction to the Public Charge 51 The Board of County Commissioners, under the authority of North Carolina General Statute, 52 appoints the Orange County Planning Board (OCPB) to uphold the written land development 53 laws of the County. The general purpose of OCPB is to guide and accomplish coordinated and 54 Approved 2/5/14 2 harmonious development. OCPB shall do so in a manner which considers the present and 55 future needs of its citizens and businesses through efficient and responsive process that 56 contributes to and promotes the health, safety, and welfare of the overall County. The OCPB 57 will make every effort to uphold a vision of responsive governance and quality public services 58 during our deliberations, decisions, and recommendations. 59 60 61 PUBLIC CHARGE 62 The Planning Board pledges to the citizens of Orange County its respect. The Board asks its 63 citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the Board and with 64 fellow citizens. At any time, should any member of the Board or any citizen fail to observe this 65 public charge, the Chair will ask the offending member to leave the meeting until that individual 66 regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored, the Chair will recess the meeting 67 until such time that a genuine commitment to this public charge is observed. 68 69 70 AGENDA ITEM 7: CHAIR COMMENTS 71 72 Pete Hallenbeck: I have one comment, one thing I would like to work on is to get the discussion in the record by 73 going around the table and a little less of just general discussion. I am trying to get it more focused for the 74 Commissioners. 75 76 77 Agenda Item 8: Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) Text Amendment – Home Occupations: To 78 make a recommendation to the BOCC on Planning Board – and Planning Director – initiated 79 amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) to change the existing standards 80 for home occupations, modify and clarify existing regulations and definitions associated with 81 home occupations, and allow for the exemption of special events organized or affiliated with 82 a government or non-profit agency. This item was heard at the December 4, 2013 Planning 83 Board meeting. 84 Presenter: Ashley Moncado, Special Projects Planner 85 86 Ashley Moncado reviewed abstract. 87 88 Paul Guthrie: First the disclaimer that I give every time that we in our household have an interest in small business. 89 I have had a lot of questions with this and I have one particular thing that I want to raise which is not new but I want 90 to raise it again. That is for minor home occupations, no matter whether you have one customer per year or 500, 91 you have to pay $90 to the planning department for the privilege of having a license. I have real problems with that 92 with certain occupations those defined as minor home occupations. I have a little bit of problem with the 93 requirement of a plot plan if it has to be done professionally. I had suggested earlier that it should be sufficient in a 94 residential home to use what is on the GIS system as a sketch of the property and indicate on that whether or not 95 that would be viable. I would hope there could be some accommodation especially for extremely small line of 96 business so that it doesn’t become a big paperwork jungle in order to file. 97 98 Pete Hallenbeck: Well, Mr. Harvey do you have a comment on that? 99 100 Michael Harvey: As I’ve indicated before, a plot plan is a simple drawing that you can use the GIS map system, it’s 101 actually listed that way in the Unified Development Ordinance. It’s not a professionally prepared site plan. The $90 102 dollar fee is a one-time application fee. There are application fees for everything you have to do and this is a one-103 time fee that you have to pay. I don’t believe it is burdensome and I don’t believe it is unnecessary and I believe we 104 are within our right to charge the fee. 105 106 Paul Guthrie: I’m not going to follow with the natural comment other than to say, I believe that to be a burden on 107 people trying to start a small business in a residence and I think as a matter of public policy, given the nature of the 108 Approved 2/5/14 3 changing of the economics in this society, that we ought to be very careful about how we do this. That was one set 109 of comments. My personal opinion, and I think everybody has heard me before on the record, my personal opinion 110 is you will have massive ignoring of this. What will come will be selective enforcement. I’m not comfortable with 111 selective enforcement. I think when you have enforcement, you enforce those who are not in compliance but the 112 enforcement actions and the litigation etc. that will follow will take precious time from the planning department and 113 the legal hypothesis of the County on this and I question that in the area of minor home occupation. I think with that 114 I’ll let others comment. 115 116 Herman Staats: I have no comments, I thought it was nicely done and it has been discussed here many times so I 117 have no other comments. 118 119 James Lea: No comments at this time. 120 121 Buddy Hartley: I don’t have any problems with the standards set. 122 123 Maxecine Mitchell: I agree with them. 124 125 Tony Blake: I reread it and I don’t have any issues with it. I think it is well put together. 126 127 Johnny Randall: I read it and I couldn’t find anything of concern. However, what Paul just brought up, so in terms of 128 people not conforming to these regulations, how is it going to be enforced? Is it going to just create contempt for 129 the law for people who don’t think they can be caught? 130 131 Pete Hallenbeck: Let me throw my two cents in on that and then see what Michael says. I think what you said is 132 very true. You have all these ordinances and there are always people who are going to fly under the radar and do 133 what they want but I think part of the goal here is that if somebody is doing that and it is bothering their neighbors 134 there is a recourse. I don’t know how you get people to follow the rules, it is very difficult, but I do like the fact that 135 at least they are there. It is very difficult to call out a neighbor, it’s a catch 22, we all want to be able to do what we 136 can but we like to be able to stop someone else if it is bothersome to us. 137 138 Pete Hallenbeck: Michael, does that pretty much jive with what...... 139 140 Michael Harvey: I’m not going to add anything. Thank you though. 141 142 Pete Hallenbeck: I have two things, one is a question about 5.4.3 special events where it talks about arts and 143 cultural special events in particular it calls out the Orange County Open Studio Tour. The other thing that I am 144 familiar with is the farm tour. 145 146 Ashley Moncado: That is exempt, that would be considered part of a bona fide farm and considered agricultural 147 and covered under a different set of rules. 148 149 Tony Blake: But that just an example. 150 151 Ashley Moncado: Yes, it is being used as an example. That was specifically called out as an example but also to 152 highlight it as well. 153 154 Pete Hallenbeck: That’s fine but by throwing it in there seemed odd to have an ordinance call out a specific event 155 instead of making it in general so I wanted to make sure it was an example. 156 157 Ashley Moncado: We could add “for example”. 158 159 Paul Guthrie: That’s about a 100, anywhere from 90 to 120 artists, who once a year open up their studios in their 160 residences by in large for the tour over two days for two weeks. Every one of those artists will have to pay $90. 161 162 Approved 2/5/14 4 Pete Hallenbeck: So does this get back to your $90 concern then? 163 164 Paul Guthrie: That’s one of them but it’s much more delicate than that. 165 166 Pete Hallenbeck: My second comment on this is on the minor home occupation, the 750 sq. ft. limit is interesting, it 167 takes me out of the game for the sq. footage I have in my house. It takes room to have a machine shop and test 168 benches and rooms for parts and electronics and I don’t think how much of your home you use is something that 169 impacts your neighbors. However, I’ll also point out that as an ordinance it is pretty nice because if that really 170 bothered me I could apply for a major home occupation and there is a mechanism to do that. That brings me to my 171 last comments and I can’t remember an ordinance that had so many lines in the sand that were being discussed. 172 We talked about sq. footage, number of trips, setbacks, what activity you can do, number of visits, size of vehicles, 173 and it is quite extraordinary for this Board to deliberate something that has so many different thresholds and lines in 174 the sand. I think it makes it a very difficult thing to discuss. Those are all my comments. Doesn’t anybody have 175 anything thing else to add? 176 177 178 MOTION by Tony Blake to recommend to the County Commissioners to accept this recommendation with comments. 179 Seconded by James Lea. 180 VOTE: PASSED 7-1 (Guthrie opposed) 181 182 Paul Guthrie: I believe that with this ordinance we are moving into an area that we are not prepared to deal with and 183 I think that while the intention is good, if you read the language carefully, especially when you start picking up the 184 UDO and reading the references, that it exposes the County to some great difficulty, that’s point one. Point two, due 185 to the current economic situation, the more and more independent, small businesses erupting whether they start in 186 the garage in California and become a billion dollar corporation or whether they start in a garage in Orange County 187 and become a fifty thousand dollar organization, this can and may, if not administered in a very careful way, be an 188 inhibition to economic development and to small business. I would much prefer to see the County develop a small 189 business license system using some of these definitions than to smuggle it through under a regulation of the use of 190 an individual residential property. With my own experience, two different enterprises in our family, one which falls 191 under this and one which does not, I would vote no. 192 193 194 AGENDA ITEM 9: COMMITTEE/ADVISORY BOARD REPORTS 195 196 a) Board of Adjustment 197 b) Orange Unified Transportation 198 199 200 AGENDA ITEM 10: ADJOURNMENT 201 202 Planning Board meeting was adjourned by consensus. 203 204 205 ____________________________________ Pete Hallenbeck, Chair