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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOCPB minutes 030216APPROVED 4/6/16 MINUTES 1 2 PLANNING BOARD 3 MARCH 2, 2016 4 REGULAR MEETING 5 6 7 8 9 MEMBERS PRESENT: Paul Guthrie, At-Large Chapel Hill Township; Andrea 10 Rohrbacher, At-Large Chapel Hill Township; Patricia Roberts, Cheeks Township 11 Representative; Herman Staats, At-Large ; Tony Blake, Bingham Township 12 Representative; Buddy Hartley, Little River Township Representative 13 14 MEMBERS ABSENT: Lydia W egman (Chair), At-Large Chapel Hill Township; James 15 Lea, Cedar Grove Township Representative; Maxecine Mitchell, At-Large Bingham 16 Township; Laura Nicholson, Eno Township Representative; Lisa Stuckey, Chapel Hill 17 Township Representative 18 19 STAFF PRESENT: Craig Benedict, Planning Director; Michael Harvey, Current 20 Planning Supervisor; Meredith Pucci, Administrative Assistant II 21 22 AGENDA ITEM 1: CALL TO ORDER 23 24 Vice Chair Tony Blake opened the meeting since Chair Lydia Wegman could not attend 25 the meeting. 26 27 AGENDA ITEM 2: INFORMATIONAL ITEMS 28 a. Planning Calendar for March and April 29 30 Tony Blake reviewed the calendar and discussed 31 32 AGENDA ITEM 3: APPROVAL OF MINUTES 33 January 6, 2016 Regular Meeting 34 35 MOTION by Paul Guthrie to approve both sets of minutes. Seconded by Buddy Hartley 36 VOTE: Unanimous 37 38 AGENDA ITEM 4: CONSIDERATIONS OF ADDITIONS TO AGENDA 39 40 No additional items. 41 42 AGENDA ITEM 5: PUBLIC CHARGE 43 44 Introduction to the Public Charge 45 The Board of County Commissioners, under the authority of North Carolina General 46 Statute, appoints the Orange County Planning Board (OCPB) to uphold the written 47 land development laws of the County. The general purpose of OCPB is to guide and 48 APPROVED 4/6/16 accomplish coordinated and harmonious development. OCPB shall do so in a 49 manner which considers the present and future needs of its residents and business 50 through efficient and responsive process that contributes to and promotes the health, 51 safety, and welfare of the overall county. The OCPB will make every effort to uphold a 52 vision of responsive governance and quality public services during our deliberations, 53 decision, and recommendations. 54 55 Public Charge 56 The Planning Board pledges to the residents of Orange County its respect. The Board 57 asks its residents to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with 58 the Board and with fellow residents. At any time, should any member of the Board or 59 any resident fail to observe this public charge, the Chair will ask the offending member 60 to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control. Should decorum rail 61 to be restored, the Chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine 62 commitment to this public charge is observed. 63 64 65 66 AGENDA ITEM 6: CHAIR 67 COMMENTS No comments from the 68 Vice-Chair. 69 AGENDA ITEM 7: UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT ORDINANCE(UDO) TEXT 70 AMENDMENT- To review and discuss government-initiated 71 amendments to the text of the UDO regarding sign regulations. 72 This item is scheduled for the MAY 23, 2016 quarterly public 73 hearing and is expected to return to the Planning Board in April 74 for a recommendation. 75 Presenter: Michael Harvey, Current Planning Supervisor 76 77 Michael Harvey reviewed abstract. 78 79 Paul Guthrie: I have a question… Increasingly, gas stations are putting TV 80 monitors in the middle of their pumps; does that count against their signage lot? 81 82 Michael Harvey: Under this proposal it would be counted as part of the allotment. So, if 83 you have 300 square feet for the district you’re in that’s part of your allotment. Our 84 current ordinance gets into a level of minutia to regulate because we don’t want an over 85 abundance of signage, we’re going the other direction with it. Saying, “Here’s your 86 allotment, you can’t live outside of this allotment. What you choose to do with that 87 allotment is your business as long as it’s permitable and complies with any other 88 applicable standard.”. There are regulations in zoning dealing with noise generation on 89 commercial lots, especially if it’s adjacent to residential lots. The sheriff ’s office has a 90 much more restrictive, and spelled out noise ordinance. There are lighting standards 91 that still have to be met, so signs still have to meet the lighting ordinance. But, as far as 92 APPROVED 4/6/16 content goes we are no longer getting in the content business. 93 94 Paul Guthrie: The Waffle House sign stands up fairly high enough to land an airplane 95 under it and I was thinking, if it had an extremely bright flashing light it could be 96 distracting to traffic. Do the existing standards give you enough information to make 97 sure that doesn’t happen? 98 99 Michael Harvey: Yes. When you look at prohibited signs we have regulations that 100 prohibit beacon signs, animated signs, and trailer signs. We have prohibitions on signs 101 that flash or blink. We have established a standard for what constitutes a movable, 102 scrolling message to only occur a certain amount of time in a 24 hour period. So the 103 direct answer to your question, Paul, is that we have existing regulations that would 104 prohibit the repetitive flashing sign. 105 106 Paul Guthrie: My last question; in the matter of the cases I haven’t had a chance to 107 read up on any of those. Things that are statutorily criminal acts that might be 108 contained on the messages on the sign; does that still hold? If those criminal acts 109 regulate or can bring charges for what goes up on a sign, is that content they’re saying 110 they can’t touch or is it not taken into account? Some examples, direct threats to 111 human beings? 112 113 Michael Harvey: First of all, is that this ordinance as we did before exempts any sign 114 erected by the government. So any sign erected by the government saying you can’t 115 walk on this grass, subject to… we’re not regulating that it’s perfectly legal. If you’re 116 using a sign message to convey a threat or to encourage a certain course of action 117 that could be perceived as a threat that’s still a criminal matter and it would be 118 prosecuted by the sheriffs office and it’s the same argument as if somebody was on 119 their property and shoots a gun in a matter that creates a public safety hazard the 120 sheriffs office is going to respond, regardless of whatever ordinance gets adopted by 121 planning or the County Board of Commissioners. That’s still going to be an actionable 122 offense. 123 124 Andrea Rohrbacher: Real estate signs. Everything is crossed out… 125 126 Michael Harvey: It’s gone because we can’t regulate signage on content anymore. But, 127 I think what you’re asking is if you can erect a real estate sign at a residential district 128 advertising a house for sale; the answer ’s yes. That’s covered. Each residential district 129 has an allotment of allowed signage, just like commercial. So, however that gets used 130 is up to the property owner. The only provision is it can only be 12 square feet which 131 was the typical real estate sign limitation anyway. 132 133 Tony Blake: I think there’s actually a case where there’s 2 parcels of land on highway 134 54 and one is zoned in one manner and the other is zoned in another manner and both 135 are for sale. The way I read this is the signs would be, by ordinance, different. Or could 136 be, based on the zoning. 137 138 APPROVED 4/6/16 Michael Harvey: No, because there’s still a master prohibition on signs over 12 139 square feet in a residential district. 140 141 Tony Blake: Right, I’m thinking about these 100 acre things where they put the big 142 board sign up and one’s zoned commercial and the other ’s zoned agricultural. 143 144 Michael Harvey: Now from that standpoint, commercial to residential, yes. You could 145 technically have a different advertising sign. Because we can’t and don’t establish… In 146 that context from commercial to residential you’re 100 percent right. 147 148 Paul Guthrie: I do have another question. The section on golf courses. Can you sort of 149 talk through what that means? I’m a little confused on the language… I can’t decide 150 what would be a sign in the context of the golf course besides saying green 1 and…? 151 152 Michael Harvey: The free standing sign, a wall sign on the building saying club house 153 this way, grill this way, here’s our specials at the grill, keep off grass, etc. We tried to 154 capture what could 155 be necessary, what is a reasonable allotment for people to live in, and you are correct, 156 with a golf course it is primarily hole 1,2,3,4,5. But, we can see directional signage, 157 which we can’t regulate by name anymore. We can just give you an allotment. 158 159 Craig Benedict: Can sports fields put signs in the outfield? 160 161 Michael Harvey: It would be based on the zoning designation of the property of where 162 the facility is located. And then, yes, they can erect signage within that allotment. We 163 can no longer say, you can have advertising limited to x,y,z. Right now for parks 164 public you have a total sign allotment of 300 square feet, as an example. For 165 recreational facilities, regardless of their location, we have a specific limitation in 166 here… I’ll have to get back to you on what it is. 167 168 Patricia Roberts: What about private property. Say you’re holding an event on a private 169 property. Specifically thinking, if you have a horse show with signs for each jump. 170 171 Michael Harvey: It’s going to be based on the zoning of the property because we can 172 no longer assign allotment based on the type of sign, like we used to. 173 174 Craig Benedict: Are farms exempt from signage? 175 176 Michael Harvey: Farms are exempt from zoning, period. So, yes, sir. 177 178 Paul Guthrie: You may want to think about some wiggle worm in the signage that 179 accumulates over time… 180 181 Michael Harvey: The problem is I can’t write an ordinance that isn’t definitive because 182 then I’m being arbitrary capricious and I hold you to a standard and then I try to be 183 wiggle room for Buddy and you sue me. And you’d be right to do so. So we have to be 184 APPROVED 4/6/16 explicit to avoid… 185 186 Paul Guthrie: There is a risk to that, of course. The risk is that it gets overturned and 187 you lose all your control. 188 189 Michael Harvey: Yes, exactly. That’s what’s happened with Gilbert already. I will remind 190 you all that state law, if you have a building construction site and you know the wraps 191 that do advertising; by state law that’s not a sign. So if you wrap a building site… That 192 type of construction signage is exempt from local sign regulation already… Any safety 193 sign erected by the government or in a public or a private right of way that’s for safety 194 purposes is already exempt… And please, you all have a tendency to email, I’d like 195 you to continue to do that. So email if you have questions or comments or 196 suggestions. I’m more than happy to take your emails, and I’ll make sure that the 197 responses go to the group as a whole so you can see. But what I’m hearing you all say 198 is if I can pay a little more attention to the Rec uses so that we’re not being overly 199 restrictive and just make sure that the allotments that we’ve recommended are 200 reasonable. Gilbert is what Gilbert is and we cannot have content based regulations so 201 we’ll move forward with the Attorney’s Office and get you the final product next month. 202 203 Paul Guthrie: I’m assuming that you’re talking about signs erected on either private 204 property or leased property. You’re not talking about public ways? 205 206 Michael Harvey: No, sir. 207 208 Paul Guthrie: Because a lot of the things that we’re talking about occur in a public way. 209 Some of those are not legal. 210 211 Michael Harvey: If, for example, someone erects a political sign in the public right of 212 way this ordinance didn’t regulate it to begin with and we don’t regulate it anyway. We 213 leave that up to the Department of Transportation. Snipe signs, which are those small 214 advertising signs that usually did an offset advertising for services or whatnot, those 215 in the public right of way while they’re not allowed by this ordinance, we don’t 216 regulate in that right of way. So, we leave it to DOT. We still prohibit painting signs on 217 rocks, and erecting signs on utility poles but, if you place it in the right of way it’s a 218 DOT problem. 219 220 Andrea Rohrbacher: One more question. Because you can’t regulate content that 221 means that a company could use their logo on a sign whether it looked good or not? 222 223 Michael Harvey: Correct. Which also means we can no longer make the 224 determination of what constitutes lewd, or inappropriate content. 225 226 Andrea Rohrbacher: That’s what I was getting at. 227 228 Paul Guthrie: Unless it violates a statute and that’s up to the sheriff. 229 230 APPROVED 4/6/16 Michael Harvey: Correct. A suggestive silhouette will be legal once this gets adopted. 231 A more blatant depiction, if it violates obscenity rules is enforceable. I know that’s a lot 232 to digest, if you all have any other questions I’m more than happy to answer them. I’d 233 like to hear any other comments you have. But this is the direction we’re headed. 234 235 236 237 AGENDA ITEM 8: UPDATE AND DISCUSSION ON UPCOMING WORK PLAN 238 AND POPULATION AND EMPLOYMENT PROJECTIONS- To 239 hear an update on the Planning Board’s Work Plan which was 240 recently reviewed by the Board of County Commissioners and to 241 review prior Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) 242 population and employment projections. 243 244 Presenter: Craig Benedict, Planning Director 245 246 Craig Benedict reviewed abstract. 247 248 Paul Guthrie: Are you saying that in terms of how you’re interpreting this is that the 249 assumption is that there will be no change in the city limits? 250 251 Craig Benedict: We’re going to take a look at a county wide population and then we’ll 252 see if a city expands and goes into the county will be a minus there and a plus there. 253 But [the total growth] will be kind of maxed out, so something that we’re going to be 254 suggesting is cities should have an idea of how much their maximum density is going 255 to be. For Carrboro and Chapel Hill there’s only a little more, even though there’s 256 some re-development opportunities. But they still have an idea of what they put on 257 their maps, what densities it’s going to be re-zoned to. And even with Hillsborough, 258 they know how much available land, they know they have water and sewer limits. So 259 there’s going to be some finite, so we’re going to kind of add up what the cities think 260 they can do and we’re going to do… We know what some of our urban transition 261 zones where we have water and sewer what that can be, that might be a little higher 262 density. And we’re going to consider somewhat conservative what actually is has high 263 growth potential in the county from an undeveloped land standpoint, even though it’s 264 land holding capacity based. But still, the projections will be moderate out there. 265 266 Paul Guthrie: Another quick question. This assumes the existing services 267 infrastructure and not expansion of services infrastructure. 268 269 Craig Benedict: Yes, we’ll take a look at what water and sewer capacity is and make 270 sure we know Hillsborough has limitations with, primarily, the sewer side. The water 271 side is has some potential because they have the second phase of the reservoir. But 272 yes… 273 274 Craig Benedict continued to review abstract 275 276 Paul Guthrie: Do those projections include estimated birth rates? 277 APPROVED 4/6/16 Craig Benedict: Yes. Estimated birth rates and in migration. 278 Paul Guthrie: I say that because we tend to have a younger county than many. 279 280 Craig Benedict: I think it’s going to be split. We’re getting some growth in 281 Hillsborough and we’re getting some younger families in. Not showing up in the 282 schools yet. But, it very well could. There’s a hot residential market in Hillsborough 283 and yet in the last couple years now we have more people over 60 than we have 284 children in school. 285 286 Paul Guthrie: This excludes Chatham, right? 287 288 Craig Benedict: We have some Chatham information that is part of the MPO analysis 289 area. 290 291 Paul Guthrie: Because eastern Chatham, if everything goes according to plan is 292 going to make any growth in Orange County look like a picnic. 293 294 Craig Benedict: That’s true. And people may decide even where there is demand, the 295 demand might be stronger there and it could diminish what occurs in our area. There’s 296 a planner, Randall Arendt, that usually writes about how to build in rural areas but he 297 has this new initiative that he’s noticed a lot of the planners coming out of school. The 298 professors that may be teaching them too analytical and too numerical with their job. 299 And so they get stuck in the numbers and they don’t see what we’re calling the reality 300 behind those numbers. They look at the population projections and all the numbers, 301 and so Randall called me about the new interns coming out of college and asked if 302 they were getting the internship, are the understanding on how to apply these 303 theoretical and too idealistic concepts, and are they getting more into the pragmatic, 304 what do you do with these populations? The whole idea with the comprehensive plan 305 was do a population projection and in 30 years from now it’s going to take us over to 306 this level. Are we ready for that? That is a conscious political decision and a 307 community’s decision, and if you don’t want it to grow to this amount then there are 308 policies to slow it down. And there might be some places that say, “Hey, we like growth, 309 how do we make it go up faster?”, that’s what planning’s about. And if you do, 310 everything else falls into place. If you predict higher populations then you better have 311 the infrastructure, the roads, the services, you better know the tax value and the 312 expenditure side. So, this is an opportunity where the populations will be, what they 313 are. One of Orange County’s large difficulties is only 35,000 people live and work in 314 Orange County, and then there’s 25,000 that come into Orange County to work and 315 there’s another 25,000 that live here and migrate out. It’d be great if we could build 316 commercial here and manufacturing and have the people that live here already working 317 the places. There’s another study done that said the triangle has some of the worst 318 traffic. The commuting time is high here, about 24 minutes. That’s a whole other study. 319 But, the triangle has some difficulties with the pattern that’s there now. If you look at I-320 85, I-40; you see traffic of an equal amount going both ways. 321 322 APPROVED 4/6/16 Tony Blake: The centralized employment location is kind of going away and there’s 323 much more of a mobility attitude towards work and there’s a lot more work from 324 home. I see a difference generationally. 325 326 Paul Guthrie: I commute up here to these meetings. I come up Old 86, and Old 86 327 is a steady stream with few breaks at the hours coming up to this meeting, coming 328 from North of Hillsborough, or from the interstates. And in the morning it’s the 329 reverse. And 54 is the same wa y, and it will get more serious and less of a way to 330 involve the jobs closer to home. 331 332 Craig Benedict: Another thing that I mentioned that the previous model did not do, 333 when you get to the edge of the model there’s nothing left. So Alamance County was 334 not actually in the model. 335 336 Tony Blake: There’s such a thing as a platoon employment as well, where they work 337 12 or 24 hour shifts 3 days a week and then that allows them to live a lot further out. 338 But this begs a question; the rural buffer around Chapel Hill seems to me to be too 339 inflexible to allow to build some office space close enough for people to work and not 340 have to commute. So I was wondering if there was a way for Chapel Hill to grow 341 slightly and trade rural buffer like kind in certain areas for another area in the county 342 further out. If you developed 30 acres up along Old 86 or New 86 and was in the rural 343 buffer, could you take that same chunk of land somewhere and move it to the fringes 344 of the rural buffer and just allow the rural buffer to breathe? 345 346 Craig Benedict: Well, the whole concept of the rural buffer is an urban growth 347 boundary with a low density ring around it, so that there would be efficient use of the 348 expansion of the public resources and infrastructure in a confined area instead of 349 urban. This concept, the idea with these urban growth boundaries was to expand… 350 What’s happening with a UGB that’s institutionalized is the affordable housing 351 issues. The supply is so short, the demand’s still there, you get the cost of land and 352 therefore the cost of housing goes up. We’re doing some analysis now that shows 353 that if somebody pays $100,000 an acre, like one of the last subdivision that came 354 through off of Whitfield, right outside the rural buffer, the building program is they’re 355 going to charge 6 or 7 times that for the house. So you’re going to see a house up at 356 $600,000-$700,000 or more because that’s the way the formula works. They’re not 357 going to put $100,000 house on a… 358 359 Andrea Rohrbacher: Well, you could get a loan on it. The house value has to be 360 30/70 for the bank to give you a loan on it. 361 362 Paul Guthrie: The rural buffer was created on the European model. The European 363 model was to have a rural area designated of which you did not grow into. Well that 364 assumes declining or stabilized populations. We don’t have that. So, that’s what 365 makes it a difficult way to manage, and it causes some real problems. The one that.. 366 every time we’ve got the development in here who wants to put septic tanks in and to 367 work in some communities once upon a time where the biggest single health problem 368 APPROVED 4/6/16 in those counties were septic tanks that were failing regularly. And that was because 369 there was a limit on public services, beyond a certain imaginary boundary, and that’s 370 the kind of thing that I worry about in this county. That we’re too rigid on rural buffer 371 interpretation so that public services are not there. By one way or another housing is 372 going to go in there and following we will be in environmental problems. But no one 373 seems to want to focus on that long-term issue. 374 375 Craig Benedict: This is at the heart of it; about what the intent of it is and are we 376 reaching that intent or are we creating a potential issue out there… 377 378 Michael Harvey: Let me just also remind the Board that the rural buffer is a concept 379 along with the water/sewer agreement. The concept is our documents or plans that 380 involve multiple partners. And part of the problem is as you need multiple partners to 381 approve amendments. We ran into some very serious problems with one of these 382 partners when we were looking to adopt the agricultural support enterprises construct. 383 Yes, we have an exit clause. I don’t think that’s viable but, we have to work within the 384 kind of funds of having each participating entity approve a modification. That is 385 proven cumbersome. And this is the lot we have. 386 387 Craig Benedict: And I gave a presentation about the 2040 MTP growth model and 388 didn’t receive many comments. It’s not like they were surprised and quiet, they were 389 just, “What’s wrong with these numbers?” and I said that we can’t build that much. We 390 can’t build 16 Morinagas a year, that’s just not realistic. It said in order to build these 391 new houses or even new multi-family the amount of acreage that it would take the 392 Planning Board to review these major subdivisions, 10 of them. 393 394 Tony Blake: But what’s the carrying capacity of the land? If you took Orange County 395 and sub- divided it into the minimum lot size and put a septic system on every one of 396 them and a house on every one of them, would the county survive? And I don’t think it 397 would. It’s how much will the land allow you to build, without septic and without 398 services. 399 400 Michael Harvey: And also remember, Orange County, like every other county, has to 401 abide by some watershed management standards imposed by the state that 402 establishes density, surface and other limitations that there’s not a lot of flexibility on 403 either. So yes, we choose in certain instances to be more restrictive but, we also have 404 the state saying in this area because of what happens to your water you can only do 405 this much development. So that’s a further limiting factor that we have to live with. 406 407 Craig Benedict: So I’ll just go through some numbers here, some examples and what 408 happened previously with the 2040 MTP… We’re in the process now for the 2045 409 MTP, we know some of the glitches that occurred, we’re getting started earlier this 410 time, I saw it happening in the 2040 plan, I tried to move the aircraft carrier, I just 411 couldn’t get them to budge. They were just going down this path like they had with the 412 2035. The 2030 and the 2035, and I said, “Have you ever checked what this is?” and 413 they hadn’t. 50,000 employees averaging about 568 square foot per employee, I took 414 APPROVED 4/6/16 a look at industrial, commercial and manufacturing and all these different things. That 415 would be 28,000,000 square feet over 30 years, divide that by 30 years, that would 416 mean we would need to be expecting to build 947,000 square feet each year. And 417 this is counting the towns… And in the cities and in the county we have a lot of 418 economic development so we would like to see a couple of these a year but there’s a 419 lot of work just to get a 100,000-150,000 square foot building. 420 421 Paul Guthrie: It just occurs to me; If you really go into.. analysis and take a look at 422 some of the current last 12 month sales analysis in terms of where retail sales are 423 taking place and the movement to mail-order operations that can deliver in 24 and 36 424 hours is putting some real stress on the shopping centers. And so, somewhere down 425 the road I think we’re going to start re- calculating whether that is necessarily going to 426 be able to support the kinds of things that we’re talking about. 427 428 Craig Benedict: I’ve seen in some smaller communities, Walmart Express; these 429 little 20,000 square foot buildings. You order and pick it up. 430 431 Tony Blake: Let me ask you this. If I ordered something on Amazon, I pay state sales 432 tax on that but I don’t pay any county sales tax on it, do I? 433 434 Craig Benedict: I’ll have to check on the distribution on that. There’s some new 435 legislation where they’re trying to capture this point of purchase. The formula is 2008 436 used to be population base, so things that were spent around the whole state were 437 given to Orange County based on our population and there’s just one section that was 438 Point of sale. So that’s why in the past Orange County didn’t mind as much. Well, that 439 switched in 2008. We lost $6,000,000 per year, and now they’re working on some new 440 sales tax formulas to try to capture this other information. I agree, I think the whole 441 shopping program.. that you’re going to see this exponential change from in- store 442 shopping to online. 443 444 445 Michael Harvey: Remember that there are state bills being discussed that would either 446 require Amazon or an out of state purveyor to track or provide the state.. so that sales 447 tax can be charged. On your North Carolina taxes you can voluntarily estimate. 448 449 Craig Benedict: So another way of looking at it.. If instead of looking at the square 450 footage you’d talk about how many employees you would get per year county wide, 451 1,670 and.. 100 employees is about a $40,000,000 project for 100,000 square feet so 452 you’d need 16 Moranaga’s to get 1,600 employees. This goes to the square foot 453 depending on how much.. this is just building cost, not counting the equipment in there, 454 you would be getting about $100,000,000 a year. And that would be great on our tax 455 base but, that’s just not happening… A little bit about population growth, this is county 456 wide, it was projected at 70,000 people. That means 2,350 a year, and that doesn't 457 sound like too much to ask for in Orange County. But, let’s find out if all that single 458 family, 65 percent of single family and you get about 2.8 people per unit. If you’re in an 459 urban area you would see 273 acres, or if you’re in a rural area you would need 1,600 460 APPROVED 4/6/16 acres a year to fulfill that need. But 273 acres in Chapel Hill or Carrboro is something 461 equal in size to Southern Village. 462 463 Patricia Roberts: I think Southern Village is 300. 464 465 Craig Benedict: And the 3 acres per unit, we did some minor subdivision analysis a few 466 years ago and even though the density might have been 1 per 2 on the average 467 because the soils was more near 3 and we haven’t done that recently but, it’s 3 or 4. 468 The 35 percent multi-family which was the assumption, even with that about how many 469 people would be there and how many acres you would need in an urban area, and I 470 did 5 units per acre and that’s probably a very small single family lot. Probably the net 471 acres would be up into a light townhouse density. But still 82 acres is a lot, plus the 472 273.. and that’s per year. And this is Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough, all that 473 stuff. Mebane has some room, it’s not all zoned yet. Hillsborough’s growing. But you 474 just see how these numbers are different to accommodate with available land area. 475 476 Tony Blake: On the previous slide that times 3 acres, that’s essentially what you’re 477 assuming is the carrying capacity of the land? 478 479 Craig Benedict: Yes. 480 481 Tony Blake: Yeah, these numbers make sense for the development that’s going out in 482 Pittsboro… 483 484 Craig Benedict continued to review abstract 485 486 Paul Guthrie: Are we paying close attention to what Chatham County is planning? I 487 think it’s going to put real pressure on the southern border of Orange County. All 488 the way across. 489 490 Craig Benedict: They’re (ie Chatham Park) going to try to do the jobs and living in the 491 same place but, we’re getting closer to Chatham County wants to talk again but, I don’t 492 know what type of change or coordination we could affect with Chatham. 493 494 495 Tony Blake: Well you know, they’re changing RTP as well. They’re starting to allow a 496 lot more residential in RTP and some real density. And that may very well mop up 497 some of this… 498 499 Craig Benedict: And why is it so important now? This is that million people that want to 500 come to the triangle in the next 20-30 years.. Where are they going to live, how are 501 you going to provide, how will it affect the quality of life? The biggest thing that hits us 502 first is traffic, there’s taxes, there’s other services, there’s quality of life, there’s all that 503 other aspects that’s all wrapped into here. But, you have to make changes based on 504 found data. Now, a lot of the money that we’re spending, whether it’s from sales or 505 transit tax is much based on the transportation needs. So if we get this and have an 506 APPROVED 4/6/16 idea of what it could be and have it as realistic as possible.. Now somebody may say, 507 “well if we project lower employment, and population we’ll never get any money to 508 widen the roads” they might say something like that but, it’s a balance and a 509 prioritization and you just have to… I think the biggest thing there was a presentation 510 on the Orange County bus.. plan, and there was a 4 year “let’s look at it again” clause. 511 What is the cost of the project, how are the revenues coming in, have there been any 512 changes with state funding, or federal funding, are revenues higher than what were 513 projected and the cost of the project changes…. Yes. The BRT bus was originally 514 planned 4 years ago to go to the UNC hospital, now it’s projected to go down to 515 Southern Village. The original cost of that was programmed at 24.5 million and the new 516 estimate is anywhere from 70-90 million. But admittedly, that’s 7,000,000 a mile versus 517 the light rail which is 88,000,000 a mile. Some new information that I heard last night is 518 the regional transportation alliance, which is a business related triangle firm that is 519 concerned about businesses and transportation, asked GO triangle if could .. a 520 dedicated, further railways be used for bus rapid transit. It’s got a dual use. I saw a 521 response today from GO triangle about why they don’t recommend that. But what 522 we’re doing with the North/South corridor, if they do a bus rapid transit route it will be a 523 separate lane from traffic but other buses can use it.. And emergency vehicles…If we 524 run a bus from Hillsborough down to the hospital we can jump on that lane and have a 525 dual use of it. So if you spend $7,000,000 a mile but you can put more people to use 526 that corridor you have such great efficiencies versus other scenarios where you have 527 light rail and they’re not suggesting to co- mingle it with a bus rapid transit bus. 528 Highway 54, even with light rail, will be over capacity. And so they’re going to have to 529 build another lane to put bus rapid transit to go out to either Southpoint, maybe out to 530 the airport, maybe up to 751 in the Woodcraft neighborhood. So a lot of things out 531 there. We’ll keep you informed on this and we’ll talk about those elements.. We’re 532 going to have the opportunity if we get these numbers fast enough to test and see 533 where it pushes new growth. 534 535 Paul Guthrie: The main thing you learn in transportation, and no community seems 536 to get their arms around, is the fact that there’s a lot of front end cost. And the 537 sooner you do the front end cost the better off you are in the long run. But, nobody’s 538 going to take that 20 or 30 or 40 year perspective. They always want to look at it in 539 the small… 540 541 Tony Blake: The point in Craig’s presentation is that we have built in constraints that 542 prevent this from happening. Our politics and our eyes and our stomach don’t match 543 here. We’re not capable of digesting these… 544 545 Paul Guthrie: If you ever need an example; the classic example is the railroad into New 546 York City. Where there’s a bridge over part of the wetlands in New Jersey that’s going to 547 cost about $3,000,000,000 to replace for the railroad traffic. And it’s the only way in and 548 the only way to go to the Northeast with all the freight traffic, except a long detour up to 549 central New York and across. And they have been fiddling on it for 40 years. The thing 550 is going to fall down on them one of these days. They patch it every year, and they 551 won’t bite the bullet. And that’s the classic. 552 APPROVED 4/6/16 553 Craig Benedict: Well, thank you for hearing it and entertaining some of the 554 philosophy behind here. It all has to do with trying to predict the future and trying to 555 hit that target at some point and match it with a good development pattern, 556 infrastructure, and services that can work. 557 558 AGENDA ITEM 9: COMMITTEE/ADVISORY BOARD REPORTS 559 A: Board of Adjustment 560 B: Orange County Transportation 561 562 563 564 AGENDA ITEM 10: ADJORNMENT 565 566 MOTION made by Paul Guthrie to adjourn meeting. Seconded by Patricia Roberts. 567 VOTE: Unanimous 568 569 Lydia N. Wegman, Chair 570