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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOCPB minutes 080316Approved 9/7/2016 1 MINUTES 1 ORANGE COUNTY PLANNING BOARD 2 AUGUST 3, 2016 3 REGULAR MEETING 4 5 6 MEMBERS PRESENT: Lydia Wegman (Chair), Cheeks Township Representative; Paul Guthrie, At-Large Chapel Hill 7 Township; Buddy Hartley, Little River Township Representative; Tony Blake (Vice-Chair), Bingham Township 8 Representative; Lisa Stuckey, Chapel Hill Township Representative; Patricia Roberts, Cheeks Township 9 Representative; Laura Nicholson, Eno Township Representative; Kim Piracci, At-Large; 10 11 12 MEMBERS ABSENT: Andrea Rohrbacher, At-Large Chapel Hill Township; Maxecine Mitchell, At-Large Bingham 13 Township; 14 15 16 STAFF PRESENT: Craig Benedict, Planning Director; Michael Harvey, Current Planning Supervisor; Perdita Holtz, 17 Planning Systems Coordinator; Ashley Moncado, Special Projects Planner; Patrick Mallett, Planner II; Rachel 18 McCook, Planner I; Molly Boyle, Planning Technician; Meredith Pucci, Administrative Assistant II. 19 20 OTHERS PRESENT: Sharon Mace; Dan Way; Austin Seifts; Annie Seifts; Nathan Robinson; Chris Cole; Franklin 21 Garland; Jimmy Garland; Javier Latre Gorbe; George Horton; Jim Parker. 22 23 24 AGENDA ITEM 1: CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL 25 26 Tony Blake called the meeting to order. 27 28 29 AGENDA ITEM 2: INFORMATIONAL ITEMS 30 a) Planning Calendar for August and September 31 32 Lydia Wegman arrived and assumed chair duties. 33 34 AGENDA ITEM 3: APPROVAL OF MINUTES 35 MAY 4, 2016 REGULAR MEETING 36 JULY 6, 2016 ORC NOTES 37 38 MOTION by Lisa Stuckey to approve the May 4, 2016 Planning Board minutes and July 6, 2016 ORC notes, seconded 39 by Laura Nicholson. 40 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 41 42 AGENDA ITEM 4: CONSIDERATION OF ADDITIONS TO AGENDA 43 44 45 AGENDA ITEM 5: PUBLIC CHARGE 46 47 Introduction to the Public Charge 48 The Board of County Commissioners, under the authority of North Carolina General Statute, 49 appoints the Orange County Planning Board (OCPB) to uphold the written land development 50 laws of the County. The general purpose of OCPB is to guide and accomplish coordinated and 51 harmonious development. OCPB shall do so in a manner which considers the present and 52 future needs of its citizens and businesses through efficient and responsive process that 53 contributes to and promotes the health, safety, and welfare of the overall County. The OCPB 54 Approved 9/7/2016 2 will make every effort to uphold a vision of responsive governance and quality public services 55 during our deliberations, decisions, and recommendations. 56 57 58 PUBLIC CHARGE 59 The Planning Board pledges to the citizens of Orange County its respect. The Board asks its 60 citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the Board and with 61 fellow citizens. At any time, should any member of the Board or any citizen fail to observe this 62 public charge, the Chair will ask the offending member to leave the meeting until that individual 63 regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored, the Chair will recess the meeting 64 until such time that a genuine commitment to this public charge is observed. 65 66 67 AGENDA ITEM 6: CHAIR COMMENTS 68 69 70 Agenda Item 7: Application For A Class A Special Use Permit: To make a recommendation to the Board 71 of County Commissioners on a Special Use Permit application seeking to develop a solar 72 array/public utility station on a 52 acre parcel of property (PIN 9835-02-9137, no address 73 assigned yet) which is accessed via an easement from 6519 U.S. Highway 70 West within 74 the Cheeks Township. This item is scheduled for the September 12, 2016 quarterly public 75 hearing 76 Presenter: Patrick Mallett, Planner II 77 78 Patrick Mallett reviewed abstract. 79 80 Javier Gorbe (Oakwood Solar Farm) gave presentation. 81 82 Michael Harvey reviewed attachments and packet contents. 83 84 Lydia Wegman: On page 167-168 are your recommended additional conditions. Can you walk through those? 85 86 Michael Harvey: I would suggest we review the conditions at the end of the presentation once we walk the Board 87 through the required findings. 88 89 Tony Blake: How many megawatts is this? 90 91 Javier Gorbe: 5 megawatts. 92 93 Tony Blake: I noticed that this is a Mebane address. There are no plans to have this annexed into Mebane? 94 95 Michael Harvey: No, sir, it’s just in the Mebane zip code for postal service. 96 97 Tony Blake: I noticed on one of the plats that pointed out some waste is going to be cleaned up? 98 99 Patrick Mallett: The portions I believe that are being currently used the Mace commercial operations will be 100 removed, cleared out, and dealt with. 101 102 Patricia Roberts: Why don't we put solar panels on top of buildings? We have a big storage building facility, why not 103 put those on top 104 105 Javier Gorbe: In some states it’s more favorable to do those types of installations. Those states have the possibility 106 of use... electricity. When you have states that the utility has too much control then the utilities ban anybody else to 107 sell electricity so they don’t have competition. So in the state of North Carolina you cannot sell electricity. 108 Approved 9/7/2016 3 109 Patricia Roberts: So what do you do with this electricity? 110 111 Javier Gorbe: You have to give it back to the grid… You cannot sell to a customer. You cannot sell to commercial 112 building. You cannot sell to a farmer. You have to sell it back to the grid and the rules to do that are in the state 113 rules and regulations. 114 115 Patrick Mallett: Those are typically used to power the building they’re on, or the near area versus this type of facility 116 that throws the power in with the grid system. 117 118 Patricia Roberts: I have solar panels on my house and Duke Power does not… It’s all in their favor, and 119 summertime we do okay. The wintertime, they may even charge you money to have to come read your meter. 120 121 Patrick Mallett: From a legal perspective, I believe, your power goes to the grid and you get a credit. 122 123 Kim Piracci: It’s my understanding that if you’ve put a solar array on the ground you can put it on the optimal space. 124 If it’s on the building it might be sub-optimal. 125 126 Javier Gorbe: You have some other problems to put them on the building, so if the building is from the 1990’s or 127 earlier there are regulations that are less strict than now. So the buildings don’t meet the actual code so you cannot 128 put anything on the roof because they don’t meet the local standards anyway. And you can still do solar, but the 129 way you do solar is more complicated. 130 131 Kim Piracci: 5 megawatts; can you put that in terms of how many houses it could run? 132 133 Javier Gorbe: Depending on the power of the house I can’t say. But, we will generate, here, 1,450 kilowatt hours 134 each kilowatt that we stow. 135 136 Michael Harvey: I just wanted to state the our ordinance doesn’t preclude the placement of solar panels on top of 137 building roofs, but again it has to handle load. We would encourage it but the building has to be able to handle the 138 load of panels. 139 140 Patricia Roberts: So there’s rows in between these, why not have them plant grapes or something? 141 142 Javier Gorbe: It’s about liability. You can really do anything between the panels, and again, North Carolina is one of 143 the best places to have a good layer of grass between the panels. Normally this is an investment so to plant 144 anything there, normally we don’t go that route because it’s a liability issue. 145 146 Lisa Stuckey: Chapel Hill just recently had a big push to get solar panels on top of peoples houses and several 147 hundred people did. 148 149 Paul Guthrie: Where is the connection going to be to the grid? 150 151 Javier Gorbe: There is an existing line here, running through 70 and this is the entrance to the site and the line is 152 parallel to the road. 153 154 Paul Guthrie: What extent will there need to be construction activity in making that connection? 155 156 Javier Gorbe: The line comes up to here and then goes this way, up to the site. We will have to do a new line. But, 157 from here to the road is up to Duke to decide how they want to refurbish the line, if they have to or put any new 158 equipment. 159 160 Paul Guthrie: Will there need to be any extensive use of land that’s not in that drawing, it’s a different ownership is 161 the reason I’m asking? 162 Approved 9/7/2016 4 163 Javier Gorbe: No, the connection has fuses and protection equipment like you can have in your house. But, it’s not 164 extensive. 165 166 Michael Harvey: Paul, let me just add that we asked a similar question that Duke indicated to us that they would not 167 have to alter their existing utility lines in the area to accommodate this project. It would be a higher gauge utility line 168 but it would be just a utility line like you see a regular power line. 169 170 Lydia Wegman: I have a couple of questions. Have any of the neighbors or nearby residences expressed concern 171 about this? 172 173 Javier Gorbe: We had a community meeting last week and what they were wanting to know was the noise level, 174 and I think we addressed that. We had another call from somebody that didn’t want to give a name, and it was the 175 question so we talked and addressed that. 176 177 Patrick Mallett: In addition to material Rachel and Molly spent a lot effort putting together a neighborhood 178 informational meeting. It’s 4 pages sort of outlining the general discussion. I would say the vast majority of the 179 discussion was, “ Can I see it? Can I hear it?”. The general principle, once you go 150 feet away and the distance 180 here is over 500 feet, roughly. The residences are thousands of feet away. The closest residence here called and 181 asked. Once I walked the gentleman through the mechanics and understanding that it’s on the other side of the 182 pond, I think he was satisfied with concerns about noise and sight. There was another residence over in this 183 general area here that had some questions about some earthwork that was being done over here; I explained that it 184 had nothing to do with the request from the solar facility. They all seemed to be satisfied. And these Minutes will be 185 entered into the record at the public hearing, along with all the application materials. 186 187 Lydia Wegman: And Javier, you mentioned that a site-specific assessment was going to be done, appraisal. Was 188 that the Kirkland one? 189 190 Javier Gorbe: Yes, that’s already done. 191 192 Lydia Wegman: And can you just explain to me again, what your North Carolina experience is. Are you actually 193 running solar arrays now in this state? 194 195 Javier Gorbe: Yes, so, ESA came here in 2010 and we are a U.S. company. We just met a farmer that wanted to do 196 solar in North Carolina and we established doing solar in North Carolina in 2010, there were no companies doing 197 solar at the time. Since then we have build around 10 sites in North Carolina, and have been operating for many 198 years. Now, we have around 35 sites that we are developing that haven’t been built yet. 199 200 Lydia Wegman: And you work with ESA? Is that an independent company or is that owned by another company? 201 202 Javier Gorbe: Yes, ma’am. And it’s an independent private company. It’s independent but the stakeholders are 203 Spanish and American. 204 205 Craig Benedict: My understanding, there’s an ESA USA and an ESA Spain. 206 207 Lydia Wegman: Is ESA USA a subsidiary of ESA Spain. Is ESA Spain the stakeholder who own ESA USA? 208 209 Javier Gorbe: ESA Renewables is owned by ESA USA, it’s an American company. And ESA Spain, I, and another 210 stakeholder own that company. 211 212 Tony Blake: I have one more question, this is a lease arrangement and it’s a 15-year lease on this land, and is 213 there an automatic renewal? 214 215 Javier Gorbe: Correct… It’s not automatic; it’s a 5-year renewal after that. 216 Approved 9/7/2016 5 217 Lydia Wegman: I saw in your slides that you’re planning to do maintenance between May and September. And I’ll 218 just note that in North Carolina you might need to do maintenance between March and November. There’s a lot of 219 growth that occurs in early spring around here. 220 221 Javier Gorbe: Right. Normally we modify that per site but we tend not to do the maintenance in the winter just 222 because the temperatures and sometimes it’s less productive than doing it in the summer. We tend to cut the grass 223 during the summer and between those we do the maintenance to make sure that everything works correctly. 224 225 Craig Benedict: Earlier slides you mentioned for every dollar invested there’s $1.93 that comes back in revenue. Is 226 there any more information in your packet somewhere that shows where that came from? 227 228 Javier Gorbe: I’m not the best person to talk about financial numbers but I can certainly address that in the future 229 and send you the information, if that’s okay. 230 231 Craig Benedict: I know that for a certain period they’re not taxed fully. So, it would just be interesting to see the stuff 232 that’s behind that. 233 234 Patricia Roberts: I do think they get a break on Orange County Property Taxes too. 235 236 Javier Gorbe: The difference is that when you produce electricity from a conventional point of view the .. drop from 237 outside the country or outside the state. In this case the solar panels; the only thing they do is produce energy and 238 they are here providing it so they tax them; they have a grade but their revenue between conventional power and 239 renewables is much bigger. 240 241 Patricia Roberts: Where are the solar panels made? 242 243 Javier Gorbe: They are made everywhere. One of the companies that was American made was bought by a 244 Chinese company. There is only one company that if you really want to buy American that meets all the criteria. I 245 believe it’s called BAA, By American Act. And there is only one company in the whole of the U.S. and that company 246 has 400 workers. If you buy those panels you are not able to do solar in North Carolina. The difference in pricing 247 doesn’t allow you to do solar. So those panels are made for residents because they are high end, they can get 248 more radiation when they are not in the optimal angle and they have more power per square foot to allow 249 residences that don’t have a big roof. 250 251 Lydia Wegman: Any other questions? I think that’s all we have right now Javier, thank you. 252 253 Patrick Mallett went over attachment 4. 254 255 Kim Piracci: I have a question about the sign, or more of a statement. There’s too much information on the sign. 256 You’re driving by and you can’t really read what the sign says. So I didn’t know if there’s any way of making… 257 258 Patrick Mallett: The sign has to contain what, why, and where. 259 260 Patrick Mallett continued reviewing attachment 4. 261 262 Tony Blake: And this would still apply at the end of the 15 years or whenever the lease is terminated? 263 264 Patrick Mallett: As long as it’s there. 265 266 Michael Harvey went over recommendations and conditions that are included in the packet. 267 268 Patrick Mallett: Just two quick notes. So as we pointed out in the neighborhood information meeting this is the SUP 269 part of the process, which has 3 subparts to it. If approved the applicant would then move on to the next step. The 270 Approved 9/7/2016 6 next step is they have to submit a site plan that’s reviewed for zoning compliance and then used with construction 271 drawings that are reviewed for submittal of a storm water permit and erosion control permits. In this case, the 272 erosion control and storm water folks have looked at this site and said, “Because of the amount of area they’re 273 using and the potential protection of environmental features, the site could probab ly qualify for a low impact design. 274 Which means they can take care of runoff nutrient removal without injecting manmade ponds, temporary driveways. 275 276 Lydia Wegman: Michael, is there any cutting down of existing trees? 277 278 Michael Harvey: Other than what is already logged, no. 279 280 Patrick Mallett showed where the trees would be preserved. 281 282 Michael Harvey went over the rest of the conditions. 283 284 Lydia Wegman: Thank you. Any further questions? 285 286 Laura Nicholson: Is there anybody else here for this that wants to speak up? 287 288 No one came forward. 289 290 MOTION by Tony Blake to recommend approval of the Class A SUP to promote the development of the solar array in 291 accordance with the section 2.7 SUP and section 5.9.6 Solar Array Public Utility of the Orange County UDO with 292 conditions 1-11. Seconded by Patricia Roberts. 293 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 294 295 MOTION by Tony Blake that the use will maintain or promote public health safety and general welfare if located where 296 proposed and developed and operated according to the plan as submitted. Seconded by Laura Nicholson. 297 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 298 299 MOTION by Tony Blake the use will maintain or enhance the value of contiguous property, unless the use is in a public 300 necessity in which case the use need not maintain or enhance the value of contiguous properties. Seconded by 301 Patricia Roberts. 302 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 303 304 MOTION by Tony Blake that the location in character for the use being developed according to the plan will be in 305 harmony with the area in which it is being located, and the use is in compliance with the plan for the physical 306 development of the County as embodied in these regulations in the comprehensive plan or portion thereof adopted 307 by the BOCC. Seconded by Patricia Roberts. 308 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 309 310 311 Agenda Item 8: Town of Hillsborough/ Orange County Central Orange Coordinated Area Land Use 312 Plan Amendment To make a recommendation to the BOCC on a Land Use Plan 313 amendment involving five parcels south of Interstate 40 in the vicinity of Old Highway 86. 314  Four parcels totaling approximately 166.2 acres are proposed to be changed from 315 “Suburban Office Complex” to “Employment”. 316  One parcel totaling 34.58 acres is proposed to be changed from “Mixed 317 Residential Neighborhood” to “Suburban Office Complex”. 318 This item is scheduled for the September 12, 2016 quarterly public hearing. 319 Presenter: Perdita Holtz, Planning Systems Coordinator 320 321 Perdita Holtz presented. 322 323 Lisa Stuckey: What is on these parcels now? 324 Approved 9/7/2016 7 325 Perdita Holtz: They’re undeveloped. 326 327 Patricia Roberts: As an interstate exit, is there any plan for gas stations? 328 329 Perdita Holtz: That’s not really envisioned with these parcels. That’s not to say in the future something couldn’t 330 happen on other parcels. 331 332 Craig Benedict: If you could show the map, there’s some areas that were not effecting change that would allow 333 those types is uses. 334 335 Patricia Roberts: What is the pink on the map? 336 337 Perdita Holtz: It’s neighborhood mixed use. 338 339 Patricia Roberts: So if somebody wanted to put a gas station they would have to get a SUP? 340 341 Perdita Holtz: It would depend on the zoning and the zoning of those parcels are EDH-2. So I would need to look up 342 and see. 343 344 Lisa Stuckey: Would it be allowed in employment? 345 346 Perdita Holtz: Well the land use classification is just the general thing; it’s the zoning that’s going to allow or 347 disallow a particular use. 348 349 Paul Guthrie: Where is the water line going? 350 351 Perdita Holtz: The sewer line is currently in the vicinity of Cornwallis Hills and it would be coming down through 352 here, under the interstate where the sewer line is. The water line actually exists on Old 86 right now. 353 354 Paul Guthrie: And the sewer line, I assume, will be using the outflow structure that serves the hospital as well? 355 356 Craig Benedict: That’s correct. When the hospital was built the sewer came closer to the parcels to the south. Part 357 of our capital improvement initiative is to assist in economic development in this area by bringing it underneath the 358 interstate, which is a high-end effort. We want to ensure that before we bring utilities to the south we’ll be in 359 agreement with Hillsborough that says we provide these economic development infrastructure incentives that we 360 will have primarily non-residential uses that have tax based employment. 361 362 Paul Guthrie: And if I remember correct, the elevations are such that at least until you get to Old 86 you would have 363 flow into the Hillsborough system for sewers, correct? 364 365 Craig Benedict: That’s correct. The sewer shed is where it flows downhill and there’s a ridgeline roughly at Davis 366 Road that flows north all the way into their system. So there’s a water and sewer boundary map that guides a lot of 367 our decisions about where you can more easily put public water/sewer versus not, and it shows this area as going 368 towards Hillsborough. 369 370 Paul Guthrie: I assume that Hillsborough has the water pumping capacity for drinking water to also go to that same 371 area? 372 373 Craig Benedict: Yes, they do. And part of the inter-local agreement will be somewhat of a reservation of water and 374 sewer capacity for this area, to ensure that if we escorted economic development and they’ll say “how much water 375 does the water and sewer purveyor treatment operate?” and we have to have a good idea of what it is. Even with 376 Hillsborough there are limitations. There’s sometimes users that have a very large amount of water usage and 377 sewage and we have to gauge. So we do have that in mind, that there is capacity for treatment and water. 378 Approved 9/7/2016 8 379 Paul Guthrie: One last question. Existing owners of residential properties- when and if those water systems are in 380 place would they be eligible to connect? 381 382 Craig Benedict: They would be able to. The design for the system to bring it south of the interstate would be enough 383 to accommodate all the growth in that area. 384 385 Lydia Wegman: Okay, let me turn to the public. 386 387 Chris Cole (member of the public): My name’s Chris Cole, I live right about there. A couple of things; First of all, I 388 wanted to make you aware that according to the town officials there is no plan to extend water and sewer south of 389 40 at this point. Of course, everything’s subject to change but there is no plan in place. Second, if you could back 390 up one slide… Employment, and this is in your packets, includes manufacturing. I just wanted to point out a couple 391 of items that would be considered permissible, if this were zoned for manufacturing. Rendering a new by-product 392 processing, poultry processing, seafood product, preparation and packaging, leather and hide tanning and finishing, 393 asphalt paving mixture and block manufacturing, chemical manufacturing, explosives manufacturing, fertilizer 394 manufacturing. That’s all the kinds of things that would be permissible changing this zoning to employment. And, a 395 lot of stuff that would be really good but, as a person who lives here I’m worried about my water and I’m worried 396 about my air. Thank you. 397 398 Franklin Garland - Garland Truffles (member of the public): I pretty much expressed my opinion last week when I 399 was here. I have a worse problem than him. I received a letter from you guys that said that I wasn’t going to be 400 affected somehow. And I was told that’s a legal term. How am I not going to be affected? Now, when Cedar Ridge 401 High School went in there I was told I’m not going to be affected. I’m affected. You should see the traffic on Orange 402 Grove now. When I-40 was put in there, I was told I’m not going to be affected. I have trucks rolling down there all 403 night long, motorcycles and everything. So there’s not such thing as not being affected. It’s a legal term, so I don’t 404 understand how I’m not going to be affected in this. I don’t particularly want --- plant down there. I mean someone 405 can do that. Who exactly wants this property? There’s wet lines down there. A good portion of this is in a flood 406 plain. So somebody’s influencing somebody in this planning commission out here, to say we want to put something 407 in that place. Somebody has something in mind. I don’t know who it is. I know when the transfer facility was being 408 placed out there the study that was done at the time said the number one prim e location for the transfer facility, 409 right here, that was the number one site until we spoke up and said that’s in the flood plain. I mean how can 410 somebody who got paid 5 million dollars to do research on this and find this a number one site for this. That’s 411 possibly the worst environmental site to put a garbage facility. Because somebody put a garbage dump next to my 412 property. On top of it, it’s in the flood plain. That’s the first thing I want to say, is this even suitable? So someone 413 obviously wants this property for commercial development. Now, let me clarify something; I have mixed feelings 414 about this. I live next door. I’m a farmer. I have an orchard, a successful nursery out there. I’m a resident. It’s going 415 to affect this residence, a lot. At the same time you guys de cide to approve this, my land value goes up. I’m on 416 prime land. The whole property… if I want to get out of here. I’ve built my own house, I live there, I put up the whole 417 farm and a whole industry in this country. That gets affected by turning this into a manufacturing facility. Which is 418 exactly where it’s going, it’s not offices that are going to go there. There’s somebody that wants to put 419 manufacturing in there. Otherwise, they wouldn’t change it. And I would really like to know who it is. I find it very 420 disturbing. That’s going to change my taxes, there’s going to be water and sewer there, which I could care less. I 421 don’t want city water. There are a lot of people on the opposite side of this out here. And again, mixed feelings. 422 You’re going to run a water line there because it’s going to have to go up I-40 and I’m going to have to be paying 423 city taxes, which you guys want that. I’m on the outskirts of the city; I don’t want to do that. That’s why I live there to 424 begin with. That’s why I bought rural property when I did, back in 1975. I like my privacy. I don’t want some plant or 425 some office building next to me. Now, offer me the right amount of money then go right to it. So, I’m not saying 426 but… this is something you guys need to take into consideration. Somebody is pushing for this, and who is that? 427 This doesn’t just happen. It’s not a convenient place to develop. It doesn’t have water, it doesn’t have sewer, it has 428 to go through the interstate to do that, it’s limited capacity to get to that point, it’s not going to come for free, and on 429 top of that a good deal of it is wetland. It’s on a flood plain. To me that’s saying some thing else is going on around 430 here. And somebody has self-interest in this. There’s really no need for it out there. There’s better use to it. Make it 431 Approved 9/7/2016 9 protected wilderness. Because that’s what it is right now. There could be a better application. Or a little park or 432 something. And I know that there’s good economic development out there but it’s really poor land. 433 434 Nathan Robinson- (member of the pubic): My name’s Nathan Robinson, and we have a property that’s located just 435 here on the south, right by Davis Road. So it’s about a 13-acre parcel and I understand the purpose of what this 436 proposed amendment is intended to do if they extend the sewer and water down there. I recognize that the bigger 437 picture is really to make these southern quadrants on the south of 40 generate more capacity and make sure 438 there’s a water tap. I think it’s a good idea. I don’t know if you have a map anywhere where the rural buffer zone is; 439 do you have that map?... So if you come off of 40, obviously those are the parcels you’re talkin g about, this is the 440 Davis Road and, I think you two gentlemen were speaking back and forth, the flow of the watershed this way goes 441 south and this way goes north. These properties right here. The conversations about the gas stations were relevant 442 because I think it seems if there was a 10-year transition zone the use of these properties is intended not to be 443 residential anymore. I think that was said in the beginning, that there are parts of this area that are envisioned to be 444 non-residential. As a result what’s going to happen, and what I would really encourage you guys to participate in, is 445 you’re going to be left with some orphaned properties along the bottom here. And these orphaned properties, 446 currently, are zoned R1. And those R1 properties have water coming already and it makes sense to fill out this 447 quadrant to encompass those types of uses. It makes sense from the watershed area to include those into the 448 zoning amendment. If that was to be the purpose… I did a little bit of learning about this and t he learning I 449 understood is it typically when you have these type of zonings and bunt up against a rural buffer zone that they are 450 all included in one same use that was your solution for --- otherwise you’d have a manufacturing type usage that 451 bunts in --- residential, and it just messes up uses of property. So, I think my objective is to make sure that the uses 452 of these properties down here, I know that we have other neighbors who are along here and I know they’ve been 453 approached for their property to be purchased for a large roadway to come through here. So I know there is the 454 development of these properties and it isn’t going to be without some flow of traffic for commercial uses. I think if 455 you do look down the road 10 years from now, I think then you guys are thinking right but this area and these 456 quadrants are going to be commercial and so I request to you guys to include these properties here and don’t 457 orphan these off. Particularly as they naturally flow into the economic development zone that you guys are 458 intending to create here. 459 460 Lydia Wegman: So you’re asking for an expansion? 461 462 Nathan Robinson: I would say to extend it down here, naturally. So that as the rural buffer doesn’t end, that the use 463 of this property flows through without creating these little R1’s right in the middle. 464 465 Lydia Wegman: Ok, thank you. 466 467 Perdita Holtz: Including the area between the EDD and Rural Buffer wouldn’t be possible with this amendment 468 because the Water and Sewer Planning, Boundary, and Management Agreement would have to be amended to 469 designate the area as primary service area, but it’s something we can keep in mind for the future. 470 471 Craig Benedict: Chair, just what we can do for the audience and for the Board, all these questions are being written 472 down and we’ll have our thoughts moving forward to both the Commissioners for something such as suggested we 473 would engage Hillsborough. It’s part of their growth area. And as Perdita mentioned, the transition area that we are 474 talking about; the transition means going from a rural to an urban transition. Where the public water and sewer go 475 and where it cannot go. So, we’ll make recommendations as we are starting to see the growth potential with the 476 hospital, bringing sewer closer to this area. Maybe it is time to re -engage with Hillsborough again. It’s been 12 plus 477 years since we designated development to say what’s happening to the south and our uses and areas. So we will 478 be answering all the questions that are coming up tonight…. We can give some brief answers tonight but as an 479 outcome of what we’re hearing tonight if it directly affects the amendments we’ll of course make some 480 recommendations. Some may come back to you; some may be for future projects. 481 482 Lydia Wegman: Well, that’s what I’m wondering. In light of what we’ve heard, you’re still asking for us to make a 483 recommendation to the BOCC tonight even though we wont have the answers to some of these questions? 484 485 Approved 9/7/2016 10 Craig Benedict: Once we’ve gone through all of them I can give you the ones that we can answer now. 486 487 Lydia Wegman: Does anyone else from the public want to speak this evening? 488 489 Tony Blake: I have some more questions… Who is driving the rezoning here? Is this a joint effort by Hillsborough 490 and the County? 491 492 Perdita Holtz: The Land Use plan is a joint Hillsborough-Orange County plan. 493 494 Tony Blake: But there’s no specific property owner that’s saying, I want this re-zoning? 495 496 Perdita Holtz: Right, this is a County initiated rezoning. 497 498 Tony Blake: And Brantley doesn’t have anybody in the hopper for development or anything like that? 499 500 Perdita Holtz: We have been talking about rezoning these parcels for many months. As you know this isn’t 501 something that just happens in a month in Orange County. And I do believe that once people found out that land is 502 available and the County might be interested that that has generated interest among people. And people are going 503 out and seeing what’s possible. 504 505 Tony Blake: I agree, I just wanted to clear the air and make sure there wasn’t a horse or a cart that was out of place 506 here. I just wanted to make sure that we fully understood from the Planning Board perspective. 507 508 Perdita Holtz: Our Economic Development staff has interest in marketing this property. 509 510 Franklin Garland: It’s a really odd place.. Like, why this? I can’t understand it. I’m just curious what initiated this 511 particular parcel? 512 513 Tony Blake: Well I spoke to Steve Brantley about this sort of thing a year or two ago, back when the tax was put in 514 for economic development and asked him what were the attractive places, and he mentioned these places, a while 515 ago. I just wanted to make sure that my understanding hadn’t changed. 516 517 Chris Cole: So no one has expressed interest in having these rezoned, outside the County? Has anyone expressed 518 an interest in having these rezoned outside the County staff? 519 520 Perdita Holtz: Not that I’m aware of. 521 522 Lisa Stuckey: I have a question. Would you take the little light and show us where the Hillsborough EDD is, and it’s 523 my understanding it’s been there since at least the early 80’s. I mean this is not a new initiative, this is something 524 that’s been designated for a while. 525 526 Perdita Holtz: The Hillsborough EDD, it’s kind of a scattered thing. It’s not as cohesive as the other two that are all 527 contiguous but it’s along Old 86 here, it’s all the purple lands. Waterstone used to be County EDD land, and then 528 Hillsborough annexed it so now it’s part of Hillsborough and it’s shown as gray. And then there’s some parcels up 529 here near the Wal-Mart, and there’s a couple parcels here zoned EDH2 and then also along New 86, in the vicinity 530 of Waterstone. 531 532 Lisa Stuckey: So since at least 1994 this has been clearly identified as economic development land, prior to that it 533 was Commercial Transition. 534 535 Perdita Holtz: Yes, there have been no changes in the boundaries of the EDDs. 536 537 Lisa Stuckey: So if people had investigated they would have known that Hillsborough and the County have been 538 envisioning this land for economic development sometime in the future. 539 Approved 9/7/2016 11 540 Perdita Holtz: That would be correct. 541 542 Franklin Garland: The question here is if people had investigated, not if they would have been notified. No one was 543 notified. I’ve been there since 1975. No one was notified. And that would make more sense. Let me explain 544 something, you say I’m not affected because --- and I got notified because I’m within 1,000 feet. Well 1,000 feet I 545 can walk back and forth ten times in this room and that’s 1,000 feet. So I am affected. But I wasn’t notified. 546 547 Lisa Stuckey: My question was simply whether this land had been identified for Economic Development for many 548 decades. 549 550 Craig Benedict: On both the Orange County land use map and on our zoning map and also on the Hillsborough -551 County joint land use map we do note where there are flood zones and we restrict development in there. So you 552 can see that, so yes, part of that 160 acres is encumbered by a flood plain and we recognize that and no 553 development can occur there. But there are other lands that would be available. 554 555 Perdita Holtz: I’m wondering if it might be helpful since these 3 items are inter-related to go on and do the 556 presentation on the second and third items because it might answer some of the questions and then we’ll wait to 557 act on each of them until after the presentations. Would that be helpful? 558 559 Lydia Wegman: Yes, I do. Thank you. 560 561 MOTION [later in the evening, after all three related items had been presented] by Lydia Wegman. Seconded by Lisa 562 Stuckey. 563 VOTE: 7-1 OPPOSED- GUTHRIE 564 565 Paul Guthrie: I am uncertain, which is why I voted no. 566 567 Lydia Wegman: I am voting in favor because I think there is a benefit to diversify land use. 568 569 570 Agenda Item 9: Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) Text Amendment: To make a recommendation to 571 the BOCC on government-initiated amendments to the text of the UDO that would modify 572 existing regulations that pertain to the Hillsborough Economic Development District. This 573 item is scheduled for the September 12, 2016 quarterly public hearing 574 Presenter: Perdita Holtz, Planning Systems Coordinator 575 576 Perdita Holtz presented item. 577 578 Lisa Stuckey: So you’re going to allow apartments but not single family or duplexes? Why? 579 580 Perdita Holtz: Well because the purpose of the EDDs is to promote non-residential uses. Multi family, although it is 581 residential, it is actually taxed differently than single family residential. It’s considered more of a commercial use so 582 there is some diversification of the tax base that occurs with multi family. 583 584 Lisa Stuckey: I think I read some place that there is a worry that if you permit single family that the land will actually 585 get eaten up by that. That there’s a tendency for subdivisions. 586 587 Craig Benedict: Part of the Waterstone development, it’s called planned development, part of the County plan was 588 more non-residential and over the years the market, because of the recession, the non-residential component was 589 more muted and after the recession faster residential growth comes back so some conversions were made there. 590 So residential is easier and so it’s good that these areas were preserved. EDH3 now allows single family. We had a 591 proposal, some of the Board members may remember, that some of these lands were going to be part of 592 Hillsborough’s extra territorial jurisdiction. Mainly the ones north of I-40. And they were going to afix their zoning 593 Approved 9/7/2016 12 category to it and they were going to consciously say which areas were going to be residential and non -residential. 594 They didn’t do that because part of the cooperative agreement didn’t go forward. That’s why we’re here 2 years 595 later saying, well we need to put a zoning category on it that fits exactly, as close to possible, what the intent of our 596 Economic Development District. Mixed use as we mentioned is supportive of non-residential, jobs, employment, 597 multi-family does have a good mix. But it’s true, single family chews up more land and creates more fiscal impacts 598 and costs than the non-residential. 599 600 Lisa Stuckey: And I think the sort of philosophical thing about this sort of siloing residential versus non, that people 601 are separated from their jobs and they have to commute and that has a bad impact on our quality of life when you 602 pull things apart like that. That comes with it’s own set of problems. 603 604 Craig Benedict: One other thing that was mentioned a little bit earlier was how these categories and things evolve 605 over time about how you use zoning. And zoning 10, 20, 30 years ago was very siloed. This is manufacturing. This 606 is retail. This is office. And you saw from our amendments that went through the last 3 or 4 months that we have 607 these categories such as office, research, and manufacturing. They put them all in one building. This EDH4 and 608 EDH5 that we’re looking at is one of those combined districts where somebody can come in and do office and some 609 assembly and some R&D and we’re also suggesting some retail so that if you have the jobs they don’t have to go 610 too far to go to a restaurant or bank. And really even thought this will probably be developed in these little zones, 611 this whole area of all 4 quadrants of the interchange is going to be mixed use. We don’t need to mix it completely 612 on every parcel but somebody living in a multi family on the south side can easily get over to the hospital if they 613 were working there. 614 615 Tony Blake: This is why RTP’s putting in all the residential. 616 617 Craig Benedict: That’s correct. 618 619 Lisa Stuckey: That’s the flip of it. 620 621 Craig Benedict: That’s the conventional zoning ideas back in the 60s. 622 623 Tony Blake: So just to talk directly to the first gentleman’s concerns, this would not preclude a Gorilla Manufacturing 624 or an asphalt plant or anything like that. There are other components to the UDO that would address those. But this 625 particular zone would not prevent it. 626 627 Perdita Holtz: You mean the EDH5 zone? 628 629 Tony Blake: Yes. 630 631 Perdita Holtz: They could theoretically be located in EDH5, but practically, with all the development standards that 632 the UDO contains, it’s not likely. 633 634 Craig Benedict: This isn’t in the UDO but this is in the practice that all cities and counties are doing in the region. 635 There’s demand for quality growth and our Commissioners and Economic Development Department targets 636 industries and if it’s the appropriate industries that give us the tax base and the high paying jobs , there’s incentives. 637 Jobs or businesses that are not fulfilling that targeted market are not likely to get incentives and therefore the 638 pressure for them to locate here is lessened. Meaning that some of those higher intensity uses that are listed in that 639 manufacturing category, we’re not going to be escorting those in with incentive packages. 640 641 Lisa Stuckey: There’s also small businesses that it seems to me that some of what you were just talking about 642 would really… that there’s not much land that’s available right now to do this kind of construction in Orange County, 643 really. 644 645 Craig Benedict: That’s correct. There are not too many interchanges and everyone that we have, besides the one in 646 North Chapel Hill, New Hope Church interchange- nothing can happen there. And this is within proximity of our 647 Approved 9/7/2016 13 University even. And there are other Economic Development zones in Efland and Buckhorn. Very prime. The 648 developers and businesses that are looking for properties in Orange County, they are surprised that there’s still 649 available land at some of these interchanges. Why hasn’t it developed in the past? There hasn’t been good zoning 650 there or infrastructure. And so we are trying to prepare the appropriate places where there’s good transportation 651 access also. 652 653 Chris Cole: Can I make one comment? Lisa… She raises the fact that there are not many opportunities to put a 654 manufacturing facility in Orange County, and that’s true. And I’d like to point out that businesses are aware of that 655 too and sometimes they go out and pay a premium… 12 years ago, maybe, next to Euro Sport, someone 656 purchased an option on land to put an asphalt plant next door to them. It cost the town of Hillsborough $300,000 to 657 make them go away. They supposedly weren’t allowed to do that there either. 658 659 Craig Benedict: We’re familiar with the lawsuit. 660 661 Tony Blake: But that, I believe, was addressed in the zoning. There was a hole in the zoning that allowed that to 662 happen. If my understanding... But I believe that’s been closed since. 663 664 Perdita Holtz continued presentation. 665 666 MOTION [later in the evening, after all three related items had been presented] by Buddy Hartley to approve the 667 Statement of Consistency. Seconded by Tony Blake. 668 VOTE: 7-1 OPPOSED- GUTHRIE 669 670 MOTION [later in the evening, after all three related items had been presented] by Buddy Hartley to approve the 671 amendment package. Seconded by Laura Nicholson. 672 VOTE: 7-1 OPPOSED- GUTHRIE 673 674 Paul Guthrie opposed because he is uncertain. 675 676 Agenda Item 10: Zoning Atlas Amendment- To make a recommendation to the BOCC on government- 677 initiated amendments to the Zoning Atlas that would rezone: 678 • Four parcels totaling approximately 166.2 acres and 17.05 acres of Interstate right-of-way 679 from EDH-3 (Economic Development Hillsborough Limited Office with Residential [current 680 name]) to EDH-5 (Economic Development Hillsborough Research and manufacturing 681 [proposed name]). The parcels are located immediately south of Interstate 40 and west of 682 Old Highway 86. 683 • One parcel totaling 34.58 acres and 8.92 acres of Interstate right-of-way from EDH-2 684 (Economic Development Hillsborough Limited Office) to EDH-4 (Economic Development 685 Hillsborough Office / Retail [proposed name]). The parcel is located immediately south of 686 Interstate 40 and east of Old Highway 86. 687 This item is scheduled for the September 12, 2016 quarterly public hearing. 688 Presenter: Perdita Holtz, Planning Systems Coordinator 689 690 Perdita Holtz presented. 691 692 Nathan Robinson (member of the public): In terms of the recognition that’s coming for those areas, they’re existing 693 residential now, they come down just south on Old 86; would there be a way to include the zoning that needs to be 694 consistent with this action so that this process doesn’t have to be repeated in the future? 695 696 Perdita Holtz: There is not a way to include it at this time. And we’ve mentioned to you about the water and sewer 697 boundary agreement that in order to be 10 year transition area the water and sewer boundary agreement would 698 need to be revised, the County’s land use plan would need to be revised, and then ultimately zoning would need to 699 be applied. And the thing that would need to happen first would be water and sewer management boundary 700 agreement adjustments. And that requires the approval of the five signatory parties. 701 Approved 9/7/2016 14 702 Craig Benedict: And what we do if there’s comments that come from the public, in the future public hearing on 703 September 12th the Commissioners can say, “ Craig and Staff, can you provide a report about how this would be 704 accomplished”. It doesn’t mean they’d want us to proceed or not, and to come up with what departments are 705 involved, what maps have to change, and we give that back to them on what we call a future amendment outline. 706 An outline of how’d we’d get it done and that we involved Hillsborough, etcetera. And then we bring that back to 707 them and the public’s available to talk at those meetings, also. And they say please proceed or not proceed. It is an 708 overlapping, multi layer process, as Perdita said. 709 710 Perdita Holtz: What happens here does get presented at the public hearing, and the Minutes for this meeting are 711 included, so the BOCC will be aware that that’s something that you brought up. 712 713 Nathan Robinson: Okay, because we literally just bought the property 6 months ago. We literally were playing with 714 the plans to put single-family residences here. And just for the sake of everyone else, we have spoken with Perdita 715 and Craig. So we had to modify our plans based on what the wave of the future is. We get that, and that’s cool but 716 as we modify we don’t want to get stuck between a hard decisions if say this is going to stay R1 forever. Because 717 then we feel like we’re going to get stuck with our only use being our one usage, but that’s not what the whole 718 quadrant is tending toward. 719 720 Lydia Wegman: Thank you. 721 722 Franklin Garland: I have a quick question. How hard is it to get land use changed? I mean, my farm is for sale. But 723 I’ve been approached by people that want it for commercial property. 724 725 Perdita Holtz: It requires the same type of process that we’re going through now. If you wanted to do it as an 726 individual… 727 728 Franklin Garland: But the same thing as Nathan’s, it’s like being between a rock and a hard place. 729 730 Perdita Holtz: Any property owner can apply to amend any of these documents. The land use plan, the zoning map, 731 the UDO. In order to have the County do a County initiated action it’s something that we can potentially talk about. I 732 can tell you that a County initiated amendment will take more than a year. 733 734 Lydia Wegman: Thank you. Do you have any discussion? 735 736 Paul Guthrie: I’m still unsure exactly. I would comment that I think if we can avoid stacking so many of these things 737 on a meeting at one time, I understand there were reasons for that, it would be helpful. After 200 pages of material 738 of which was changed at least twice and reading it, coming here and then having 2 hours of discussion, I still feel 739 uncomfortable. And I’m not sure exactly, when you ask for my vote, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. It’s not that 740 I’m for or against, I’m just not sure in my own mind exactly what the best option is given all of the variables that are 741 involved. So I just want to state that. 742 743 Kim Piracci: I’m just clarifying a question, all these changes are being driven by the desire to increase the tax base; 744 is that correct? 745 746 Perdita Holtz: They’re being pursued to diversify the tax base, not necessarily increase it. 747 748 Tony Blake: In other words, to have the County less reliant on residential housing taxes, and have a little more 749 diversity in the base. In case there’s changes in the economy you have less of an impact. 750 751 Craig Benedict: And the underlying analysis is non-residential property pays more taxes than it costs in services. So 752 there’s a little bonus there. And residential, in most cases, costs more than what we get in tax, unless it’s a real 753 expensive house. So Orange County is overly reliant on their residential property owners to provide those services 754 that everybody loves. And that’s for schools, that’s for social services and health services. So our compr ehensive 755 Approved 9/7/2016 15 plan which is how to promote growth in the right areas and match the uses to their locations. This has been for 40 756 years, an area at an interchange. We knew that it was coming that we needed to preserve and promote it for 757 primarily non-residential uses. That’s why one of the recommendations here was to bring down the single family 758 potential since it’s happening everywhere else, that there are limited areas that are prime, and interest from the 759 non-residential development sector that they’re looking for. And they’ve looked at interchanges. They look at 760 visibility on the interstate and interchange and infrastructure. It wasn’t until we got that quarter sales tax, part of it 761 going to schools, part of it going to promote economic development, that we start putting infrastructure out there, so 762 what prompts this whole process is there’s been a lot of work done from Efland back to Mebane with infrastructure, 763 we have something on the edge of Durham that’s underway, and this has been the last area. And what has slowed 764 us down a little bit was not wanting to put a million dollars of infrastructure in and have it turn to residential. 765 Residential now is in EDH3 is by right. There’s been some interest in the development community to do something 766 out there. They may use EDH3 or 4 or 5, or they may come in with a master plan development which would be an 767 additional zoning and they might have to go through this process again. But at least this will be a guide of what can 768 be done out there. And if they go through that conditional zoning district process there’s public meetings, what uses 769 exactly go out there, so the 41 pages that Perdita listed will be there. 770 771 Lydia Wegman: Are there comments? I’ll just say with Paul, I’m a little uncertain about how exactly to proceed, as 772 well but you’re recommendation is important. 773 774 MOTION by Lisa Stuckey to approve the Statement of Consistency. Seconded by Tony Blake. 775 VOTE: 7-1 OPPOSED- GUTHRIE 776 777 MOTION by Laura Nicholson to recommend approval of the amendments to the Orange County zoning atlas. 778 Seconded by Buddy Hartley. 779 VOTE: 7-1 OPPOSED- GUTHRIE 780 781 Paul Guthrie opposed because he was uncertain. 782 783 784 Agenda Item 11: Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) Text Amendment: To make a recommendation to 785 the BOCC on government-initiated amendments to the text of the UDO that would establish 786 use standards to allow certain principal uses to include a small component of other specific 787 uses in the O/RM (Office/Research and Manufacturing) zoning district. This item is 788 scheduled for the September 12, 2016 quarterly public hearing. 789 Presenter: Ashley Moncado, Special Projects Planner 790 791 792 Ashley Moncado reviewed abstract. 793 794 MOTION by Laura Nicholson to approve the Statement of Consistency. Seconded by Lisa Stuckey. 795 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 796 797 MOTION by Laura Nicholson to recommend approval of the proposed text amendment. Seconded by Lisa Stuckey. 798 VOTE: UNANIMOUS 799 800 801 AGENDA ITEM 12: COMMITTEE/ADVISORY BOARD REPORTS 802 803 a) Board of Adjustment 804 b) Orange Unified Transportation 805 806 807 AGENDA ITEM 13: ADJOURNMENT 808 809 Approved 9/7/2016 16 Planning Board meeting was adjourned by consensus. 810 811 812 ____________________________________ Lydia N Wegman, Chair