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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2.7.24 Planning Board Minutes Approved 3-6-24 1 MEETING MINUTES 2 ORANGE COUNTY PLANNING BOARD 3 FEBRUARY 7 4 REGULAR MEETING 5 6 MEMBERS PRESENT: Lamar Proctor(Vice-Chair), Cheeks Township Representative; Delores Bailey, At-Large 7 Representative; Beth Bronson, At-Large Representative; Marilyn Carter, At-Large Representative; Statler 8 Gilfillen, Eno Township Representative; Chris Johnston, Hillsborough Township Representative; Liz Kalies, 9 Chapel Hill Township Representative; Steve Kaufmann, Bingham Township Representative; Melissa Poole, 10 Little River Township Representative; Whitney Watson, At-Large Representative. 11 12 MEMBERS ABSENT: Adam Beeman (Chair), Cedar Grove Township Representative; Charity Kirk, At-Large 13 Representative. 14 15 STAFF PRESENT: Cy Stober, Planning & Inspections Director; Perdita Holtz, Deputy Director— Long Range 16 Planning &Administration; Tom Altieri, Senior Planner— Long Range Planning &Administration; Lauren 17 Coffey, Planning Technician. 18 19 OTHERS PRESENT: Leigh Anne King, Emily Gvino, Dale Morgan, Michael Hughes, John Dempsey, Margo Lakin, 20 Lynn Nilssen, Lisa Brown, Candice Bender, June Minton, Robb Minton, Peter Sandbeck, Regina Baratta. 21 22 AGENDA ITEM 1: CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL 23 The meeting began at 7:00 PM. 24 25 AGENDA ITEM 2: INFORMATION ITEMS 26 Vice-Chair Proctor reviewed the upcoming calendar for March. 27 28 AGENDA ITEM 3: APPROVAL OF MINUTES 29 January 3, 2024 Regular Meeting Minutes. 30 31 Marilyn Carter presented a correction to language on line 964 of the draft minutes. 32 33 MOTION BY Statler Gilfillen to approve the Meeting Minutes with amendment to line 964. Seconded by Melissa 34 Poole. 35 36 MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY. 37 38 AGENDA ITEM 4: CONSIDERATION OF ADDITIONS TO AGENDA 39 None. 40 41 AGENDA ITEM 5: PUBLIC CHARGE 42 43 INTRODUCTION TO THE PUBLIC CHARGE 44 The Board of County Commissioners, under the authority of North Carolina General Statute, 45 appoints the Orange County Planning Board (OCPB) to uphold the written land 46 development law of the County. The general purpose of OCPB is to guide and accomplish 47 coordinated and harmonious development. OCPB shall do so in a manner,which considers 48 the present and future needs of its citizens and businesses through efficient and responsive 49 process that contributes to and promotes the health, safety, and welfare of the overall Approved 3-6-24 50 County. The OCPB will make every effort to uphold a vision of responsive governance and 51 quality public services during our deliberations, decisions, and recommendations. 52 53 PUBLIC CHARGE 54 The Planning Board pledges to the citizens of Orange County its respect. The Board asks 55 its citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the Board 56 and with fellow citizens. At any time, should any member of the Board or any citizen fail to 57 observe this public charge, the Chair will ask the offending member to leave the meeting 58 until that individual regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored, the Chair 59 will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to this public charge is 60 observed. 61 62 AGENDA ITEM 6: CHAIR COMMENTS 63 None. 64 65 AGENDA ITEM 7: UPDATE ON COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE PLAN(CLUP)—To receive a presentation from Clarion 66 Associates, the County's consultant preparing the Land Use Plan update. 67 68 Tom Altieri introduced Leigh Anne King and Emily Gvino, consultants from Clarion Associates working on the 69 Orange County Comprehensive Land Use Plan. 70 71 Leigh Anne King provided an update on the progress of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan since the last 72 briefing. She shared community engagement findings from what was learned at various meetings and online 73 engagement. 74 75 Emily Gvino presented methods and findings from the first Community Engagement Window of three to occur 76 over the course of the Plan, including statistics on community goals and visions for the County. Ms. Gvino 77 summarized the importance of this data for guiding next steps in developing policy guidance to balance land 78 use needs and community priorities. 79 80 Leigh Anne King discussed using results from the Strategic Plan Survey relating to land use to help build a 81 better representative sample, since all community engagement responses for the Comprehensive Land Use 82 Plan surveys have been self-selected while the Strategic Plan survey was conducted to be statistically 83 significant. Ms. King also reviewed project deliverables that are currently or soon to be available, including the 84 Community Policy Profile, stakeholder interview summary reports, a data fact book, and maps. Ms. King 85 detailed next steps on the project, including a similar briefing to the Board of Commissioners, a presentation at 86 the Agricultural Summit, publishing the fact book on the website, and then developing the Plan beginning 87 Summer 2024. 88 89 Vice-Chair Proctor invited all Planning Board members to ask questions. 90 91 Beth Bronson: Did you say that the results of the Community Engagement Workshop would be available 92 on the website under the resource tab? 93 94 Leigh Anne King: Yes, we'll have a summary report specifically for the first round of engagement that will 95 have the documentation that you saw here as well as verbatim comments when people wrote on Post-It notes 96 or wrote in online, all of that will be documented in that report. 97 98 Beth Bronson asked about the option of continuing to keep surveys open past the engagement window to 99 potentially have input for the County that would not be captured in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Approved 3-6-24 100 101 Leigh Anne King: Leaving it open is an option. The one thing I would caution you about with respect to that 102 is I would recommend that if you're going to be asking the public to take a survey, you want to use the data. 103 And we can't continuously be changing the report. So, I think that's one of the challenges of doing it that way. 104 105 Beth Bronson: Absolutely. I mean, I agree 100 percent with you in respect to that and I understand the 106 design of using the data set to move forward to second and third. I guess that makes sense and if County had 107 a section of, "here, you want to answer these questions separate from this and move those questions to a 108 different location," I could understand that. 109 110 Leigh Anne King: And there's also an opportunity to reach out and provide comment at any point and time 111 through the website. But I think we can kind of take into account what you're concerned about. Should there 112 always be a place for someone to kind of express their interest or concerns? 113 114 Beth Bronson: Yeah you would want to state you're not using that anymore but these responses could be 115 used by the County at a later date. I think it would be valuable data for the County in a way. 116 117 Cy Stober: If I may interject—This is a constant struggle for planners when we do plans of any scale, 118 small area plans, corridor plans, neighborhood block plans, or a county-wide comprehensive land use plan, is 119 you have to close the survey if you're going to use it. And this is a critical part of informing the values that will 120 inform the model and work that we're going to do in the next steps of the project. And so, we do have to close 121 the survey and we certainly don't want to mislead the public that if they participate, that input will then be used. 122 Because we can't use it at this point. We will be doing other outreach and engagement; I believe that will 123 probably include some other survey work. And there will, of course, always be opportunities, Tom has set up a 124 good email address for people to get in touch about this planning effort. And we're working closely with 125 community relations staff as well to use social media and get the word out and get feedback through those 126 avenues, too. So, I completely hear you, Ms. Bronson. We'd love to be able to somehow in real time just have 127 a constant feed into the models and have them adjust accordingly, but it's not possible and we have to make 128 the hard decision on when to close the window. 129 130 Beth Bronson: And I would agree with that. I wouldn't want there to be like an open survey that didn't 131 count or anything like that that may even keep somebody from filling out the survey you do want data on. 1 132 don't think you would want to change anything based on that. But if there is a way, yeah, to have those 133 responses kind of in a repository. That's great. 134 135 Liz Kalies: I don't have any questions. But also thank you. It was really thorough and really thought 136 provoking so really nice work. Appreciate it. 137 138 Delores Bailey: The number of people that answered the survey was only 604? 139 140 Leigh Anne King: For the Strategic Plan Survey. For a statistically significant survey for Orange County 141 based on your population, it was supposed to be 580 responses or something like that that I read in the report. 142 So, they actually exceeded the number to meet that statistically significant threshold. I know it's, for the non- 143 statisticians like myself, it's always hard to think that that many people can be representative of a body that's 144 way larger than that. But what they do is they look at, they do a random sampling and they also go through 145 and check for all of the socio-demographics to make sure that those are representative of the larger 146 community as well. The community engagement we conducted is self-selected. So, we do look at how 147 representative it is of the community. But it is not statistically significant because those folks chose to 148 participate, they're not randomly sampled. 149 Approved 3-6-24 150 Delores Bailey: Right. And along that same line, in the group that you selected the ones that you just 151 mentioned, did you have a breakdown of how many African Americans, how many Hispanics? I know that she 152 mentioned that there was whole session done in Spanish. And were there any takers to that or— 153 154 Leigh Anne King: No. So, you know, there was a fair amount of effort that went into making it accessible 155 and reaching out to different organizations and contacts that represent those communities within Orange 156 County, and I think that's one thing that we really want to improve upon for the second round of engagement is 157 to make sure that we don't just kind of provide the opportunity, but we're actually engaging with those 158 community members. So, I think we're ready and know how to do that, we just have to make sure that we are 159 going to be able to engage with them directly. And we have some ideas for how we can do that better in the 160 second round of engagement. 161 162 Chris Johnston: I want to go back to the DEI database that you were talking about. You sent out 163 messages to 70 orgs and 100 direct outreaches, what was the response rate on that? In terms of how many 164 people actually replied back to your outreach? 165 166 Leigh Anne King: So, some of the outreach was just more informational to let them know. I think the 70 plus 167 was, "these community meetings are happening in January. Here's the time and location. We encourage you 168 to attend. Please make your networks aware that this is an opportunity." We also publicized that the gift cards 169 were going to be available as kind of an incentive to attend. For the direct reach contacts, there was some 170 level of response as part of that. So, Tate Consulting that worked on the team, they were directly emailing and 171 calling different contacts as part of that work. I don't want to speak on behalf of them, but I think what I would 172 characterize my understanding of that experience is that they didn't receive as much response as they had 173 hoped to. You don't always get everyone on the phone when you make the first call. And so, I think there's 174 some work to be done to kind of make land use planning important to these groups and organizations, and 175 help them understand why it's important to be participating in this process. So that's another part of our 176 charge moving forward. 177 178 Chris Johnston: In the public workshops and that sort of thing, how many repeat people came to those 179 meetings? Did you have a lot of people who were there for Meeting 1, 2, and 3? 180 181 Leigh Anne King: We did have some folks. I don't think that we have an accurate counting of that 182 necessarily. I would say not the majority of people. The majority of people from meeting to meeting were new. 183 But there were some that were repeat. I think there were some that actually attended every meeting. 184 185 Chris Johnston: And at the end of all this, if we go through and we don't have the representation that 186 matches the County or whatever the case may be, what's the end outcome there? 187 188 Leigh Anne King: Well, that's why you have the Strategic Plan Survey because that is, that's the one you 189 can kind of hang your hat on in terms of representation across the community. That's the one that really did 190 look closely at making sure that all communities were represented in the data. I'm sure you're probably aware 191 of this, this is a challenge that most communities face, to get harder-to-reach communities that maybe 192 historically haven't been involved or haven't been asked to be involved in engagement processes. It's harder 193 to connect with them. So again, I think we're coming up with some different ideas for how we can do that 194 better in the second round. 195 196 Chris Johnston: I guess I just come back to the question of there seems to be a sub-vendor who's entire 1.97 purpose is to make sure that we have this kind of outreach and it just doesn't seem to be happening quite yet. 198 And so, I don't know what that deliverable looks like. It's a problem across the board. But what are next steps Approved 3-6-24 199 and how can we address while we're still in the process and not at the end go, `bops, you know, we didn't have 200 an opportunity." 201 202 Leigh Anne King: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. So Emily mentioned there's some specific groups 203 that we identified from the data that we were not getting the representation in terms of the participation and so 204 1 think now that we know that we do have, Tate will continue to do, they continue to have some a role in the 205 community engagement in this next window where they can maybe be a little more targeted to some very 206 specific groups. So the database I think had over 200 different contacts. I think there were a lot to connect 207 with, which is great to have that many groups and organizations and businesses in the County to reach out to. 208 It also makes it a little difficult to have personal conversations with all of them. But I think that now we can kind 209 of narrow that down a little bit more and have some more targeted discussions and maybe push a little bit 210 harder to have those discussions so that we can make sure that those different community groups are 211 represented in the second round of engagement. 212 213 Chris Johnston: Last comment, Cy, have you all looked into how the Health Department can be a place to 214 contact the more diverse communities and populations? 215 216 Cy Stober: We have not. That's very constructive feedback, thank you. 217 218 Whitney Watson: I have two questions. One is if Clarion can drill down a little bit through the kind of 219 economic development options that might be developed. So, it's one thing to sort of go, "we'd like to see 220 renewable energy." I don't know what that really means. Does it mean a lithium mine like out by Charlotte or 221 does it mean something else? It would be nice to know what people think those different kind of job categories 222 would be. And along with that, what education requirements there might be as well as transportation and 223 training? And then my other question has to do with drilling into what people think about or the community 224 thinks about affordable housing. Maybe it's great to say, "we would love ADUs or tiny home villages 225 everywhere, but not in my backyard." So perhaps presenting some alternatives in one of these engagement 226 sessions might help people tease out what they really mean about that. 227 228 Leigh Anne King: On the economic development-related land uses, I think that it's a good question. I would 229 be very surprised if a mine would be supported by this community. But I could be wrong. I think that what we 230 want to do with the land use scenarios that we're going to be testing in the fall is to start to, like you're saying, 231 drill down a little more specifically, particularly looking in the economic development districts and potentially 232 other places, if that's where this drives us to. What are the types of land uses that should be accommodated 233 within those areas? What types of employment are we wanting to support? I think that's important. We have 234 the Economic Development Commission and staff representation as part of the staff working group that are 235 helping us to kind of understand what their goals are, what they're working on. I think we might not have a 236 specific piece of feedback that was shared in this but one of the pieces of feedback we received in the 237 community engagement is there's an interest in small businesses and local businesses in particular. One of 238 the questions I have as a consultant kind of thinking about this stuff is not to say that that's not a good thing to 239 support, but what are the, in Orange County, generally speaking, what are the wages that those employees 240 make and are those wages that would actually allow people to kind of both live and work in this community? 241 It's an important question to consider. If we are, if one of our goals is to try to reduce the amount of people 242 that are working elsewhere and driving in every day or cross-commuting. So, I think that that's definitely 243 something, I don't have an answer to your question about what those land uses will be. But I think that's 244 something that we're going to be working through as part of those land use scenarios. You know, solar farms, 245 that's one that a lot of communities are looking at. Is that a type of use that we want to be supporting and 246 where does that make the most sense? 247 Approved 3-6-24 248 Whitney Watson: Right. So, kind of a follow onto that is, what is the economic potential for that? Because it 249 may be that there's lots of jobs created to build that farm, but only two or three or so to maintain it. And 250 perhaps a better example of the kind of jobs that people might question is, "do I want something that's a 251 warehouse where they may hire 50 to 75 people, but they're not actually producing anything, versus a 252 manufacturing facility with maybe a larger employment work force, different kinds of salaries, that kind of 253 thing?"And that makes a big difference, I think, when people think about, "yeah, I'm willing to have a 254 warehouse down the road from me with it's traffic versus a production facility that's making something that gets 255 shipped all over the country." 256 257 Leigh Anne King: On the affordable housing question that you had in terms of kind of what are people 258 thinking about when they say they want to solve this problem, what are the solutions that they're interested in. 259 1 mean, one of the things is we haven't defined and designed exactly what the second round of engagement 260 will look like. But we could potentially kind of explore different models and share that with the community 261 members. I think an important thing to also be thinking about, too, is that while this is a County plan focused 262 on the County's direct authority, where you have land use, planning and zoning jurisdiction, affordable housing 263 as we know is not a County alone problem. This is very much also a challenge that the municipalities and 264 neighboring jurisdictions are dealing with as well. That's part of a challenge. When I work with counties, I try 265 to recommend that we think about how are there ways to partner it because a lot of the services, the public 266 transportation, the jobs, are often located within the municipalities. And affordability is not just about housing. 267 It's also about transportation and other related costs. And so, the further out you put people, the more 268 potentially over time their costs are going to be increasing. So, it's a challenge because it's not just a question 269 that the County alone can really solve, and shouldn't be solving alone. It's really a more regional kind, or at 270 least within the County, problem to be addressing. 271 272 Whitney Watson: I was really glad to see that that nexus of affordable housing and transportation came up 273 over and over again. Because that does mean that we will hopefully focus our attention on finding a good 274 solution for both of those. 275 276 Lamar Proctor: So the Strategic Survey Plan is done by a different agency or business? 277 278 Leigh Anne King: BerryDunn, and they actually had, there was a different group as part of their consultant 279 team that conducted the survey, if I remember correctly. 280 281 Lamar Proctor: And will those results also appear on the website at some point? 282 283 Leigh Anne King: There's a full report, that anybody can access, it's on the County's website. 284 285 Lamar Proctor: And so, where will that appear for the public to see those results? Would it be on 286 OrangeCountylanduseplan.com? 287 288 Leigh Anne King: We can cross reference it. We can definitely add that to the website. I don't think we 289 currently have that today, but— 290 291 Cy Stober: The Strategic Plan is coming to the Commissioners for adoption at their next meeting, on 292 February 20t". Where that will be stored on the County's website, that project was managed by the Manager's 293 Office, so I'm not sure, but we're happy to provide links to that from the Comprehensive Plan. 294 295 Lamar Proctor: I think it would be very helpful for all of the survey results, whether they're the community 296 engagement, the Strategic Plan Survey, or the stakeholder interviews, to see all the different conversations 297 and clearly identify the source of that information. I do think the Strategic Plan Survey, being that it's Approved 3-6-24 298 statistically significant, is really important in terms of identifying the needs and opinions and views of the 299 County residents. The community engagement window, did I get those numbers right? There were only like 300 16 online surveys? 301 302 Leigh Anne King: That's right. I was surprised about that too. That is, as Emily was stating, that is not 303 normal. Even before the pandemic, most communities that we work with, very few people show up at the 304 public meetings, the in-person meetings, and a lot more folks respond online, and it was kind of the flip, here in 305 Orange County, which was interesting. That it's a good thing, I think people are feeling safe to come out and 306 go to these meetings, which is good. But there's something about in-person engagement, maybe, that they're 307 more attracted to, than doing a survey online. And part of that could be, because you do have a lot—the 308 Climate Action Plan, the Strategic Plan, the Land Use Plan—there's been a lot of surveys and public 309 engagement, and that might be part of the reason why there weren't more higher level of online responses as 310 well. 311 312 Lamar Proctor: Well, I do think that more data is better. So, anything that we can do to facilitate the next 313 round... Will there be another round of online surveys? I know that this one's closed. 314 315 Leigh Anne King: Every engagement round comes with both an online and an in-person component. And 316 they're the same thing, so it makes it accessible if folks'schedules don't permit them to come to the meeting. 317 318 Lamar Proctor: Well, I think knowing that we had such a low number on the online, we should be 319 cognizant of that, in the next window to try and get links out to as many sources as possible. 320 321 Leigh Anne King: I think that's right. And that probably is part of the story behind why we didn't have folks in 322 the younger age brackets, that Emily was mentioning, because that's where get, typically speaking, we get a 323 lot of feedback from those groups online. 324 325 Lamar Proctor: I felt when I read the community stakeholder interview themes, that they didn't really... 1 326 guess my question is, how did y'all present that? How was that decided on the narratives there? Was it just 327 verbatim from people? How did you compile those interviews and present them in this format? 328 329 Leigh Anne King: So, what we did was we tried to organize under key critical topics that we were hearing 330 about from multiple interviewees, or survey respondents, across the 57 interviews and the survey responses 331 that we received. Some of these issues are, many people, if not all people, were speaking to them. Some of 332 them had maybe fewer responses. This was more of a qualitative exercise than the quantitative exercise that 333 we just showed you with respect to the community engagement, so there may have been some issues that 334 maybe we only heard from 5 or 10 people about, but we feel like as, with our expertise and our experience, 335 that this is an important issue to be raising, even if the entire group was not necessarily speaking to it, it's an 336 important idea to be sharing and publishing as part of this report. 337 338 Lamar Proctor: Because there was, in the stakeholder interview themes and narratives, there was a much 339 stronger push for development that I don't think was reflected in the surveys and the community engagement, 340 and I was wondering if you noticed that, if I'm misreading that, or if— 341 342 Leigh Anne King: I think that's right. That's part of the reason why I kept the economic development stool 343 on the Sustainable Development Venn Diagram, because, not to underplay the community engagement, 1 344 think it's very important, but there are also some important stakeholders that we met with in this process that 345 had a slightly different view about things, and those inputs are important as well in this process. So, we're 346 collectively looking at all those inputs, even if they don't match up. And that's going to happen. That's very Approved 3-6-24 347 common. These processes are, that's what makes them interesting and challenging, because not everybody 348 sees the world in the same way. 349 350 Lamar Proctor: Correct. I just didn't know how you weigh these things, or if you're just like, "here they 351 are. Here's what the statistically significant survey say, here's what the self-inviting group say, and here's what 352 the stakeholders say." I'm just wondering in terms of the themes and narratives in stakeholders, for example, 353 the issue with Mebane, in your report, there's an indication from stakeholders, without really parsing out how 354 many stakeholders or who said it, or where this information's coming from, that Mebane is not really as 355 development hungry as it seems to be. But I think there's plenty of examples that that is also not true, so 356 there's a disconnect between what is verifiable, accurate information, and what stakeholder summary 357 interviews are, and the way they're presented. 358 359 Leigh Anne King: I think so. It sounds like you're interested in more kind of quantifiable reporting of what 360 the stakeholder interview responses were. And I think that we typically write them as more qualitative than 361 quantifiable at that stage. The purpose of those stakeholder surveys and interviews is really to give us a pretty 362 quick dose of what the issues are in the community and then we kind of use that to help define the questions 363 we want to ask the community and test, "is that right, are we hearing it right?" So, what we learn from the 364 community engagement and the Strategic Plan Survey, is that, to your point, there's less of an emphasis on 365 economic development in terms of the community aspirations that we're reading through those two reports 366 than we heard from in the stakeholder information. Does that make sense? 367 368 Lamar Proctor: And that's why I'm noting that kind of disconnect there. 369 370 Leigh Anne King: Yep. And that's something that we will help to shed some light on as part of that new 371 Issues and Opportunities Report. And we're not going to go through line by line comparing every single issue, 372 but I think that we can talk about how there's some differing opinions about some different topics within the 373 community. 374 375 Lamar Proctor: And then, UNC. So, there was,just kind of like, "UNC is there." Is there a way to 376 engage? I know UNC has a school of government and they have a whole branch of people who look at the 377 interface between local government and development, they have small business advisors. And what I did like 378 about your report is it got me thinking about one of the largest, if not the largest employer in the county is UNC 379 Hospital and is there any way to interface with them and get them to be a stakeholder in the community in 380 terms of affordable housing. Because a lot of the people who need affordable housing are the people who are 381 working at UNC Hospital or University of North Carolina, generally. And I didn't know if there was any fertile 382 ground there moving forward, because they are a huge part, and they just seem kind of silent in this 383 conversation. 384 385 Leigh Anne King: I think that that is a really good idea to be exploring. As a land use plan, since our kind of 386 focus is on developing a land use plan at the end of the day for this project, and I think that land use plan can 387 include some recommendations for how the County might go about either partnering or being a funder, or 388 whatever the recommendation is with respect to affordable housing. And it seems like that's a very important 389 opportunity—is how can we be kind of partnering with our biggest employer in the county, that generates a lot 390 of the workforce that can't live here because of wages, etc. and the lack of affordability, that seems like an 391 important kind of recommendation to be considering. 392 393 Lamar Proctor: And last point on the stakeholder interview answers. I think going forward, I'd like for it to 394 have some clarity as to like, this is a qualitative analysis. Because someone who is reviewing this can get 395 misled into thinking, "well, these are quantitatively important things,"as opposed to, "this is kind of the 396 conversation themes that come up when we talk to stakeholders." Approved 3-6-24 397 398 Leigh Anne King: One of the reasons that we take a more qualitative approach versus quantitative, is we do 399 want to be representative of the community when we do quantitative analysis, whereas the qualitative analysis 400 with stakeholder surveys is really an opportunity to meet with County leadership, advisory board members, 401 staff, which aren't necessarily going to be representative sociodemographically of the community, but they are 402 the people that are working on a regular basis in this area. So, that's why we take a more qualitative approach 403 as opposed to a quantitative approach. 404 405 Melissa Poole: So, on the renter engagement, obviously, that's of concern, because it was so low, and 1 406 can't help but wonder if that could be, intuitively, when you hear"land use plan," and you are not a land owner, 407 or a property owner, you're naturally like, "why, how does this affect me?" So, perhaps in trying to generate 408 more engagement, kind of outlining whether you own property or not, the importance of the Land Use Plan, 409 and probably a particular emphasis on the communities seeming to drive for affordable housing, because one 410 has to assume, if you are not a homeowner, that you're renting because it's expensive to own a home. The 411 second is, I'm concerned with the engagement of, and if I looked at it correctly, obviously those that are 64 and 412 older are turning out, because, generally speaking, those are the folks who are most concerned with, "I've lived 413 here all my life, this is my property, this is what I want." But, I think, now, I know what I put on, every time y'all 414 have sent us stuff, I put it on my social media. I think that broadening the social media, more so than just 415 Facebook, if you want to reach them 15 and older, you got to do Instagram. I mean, there's no two ways about 416 it. They don't Facebook, they don't Twitter. But I also think you can possibly engage more diversity as well, 417 diversity both ethnicity as well as age, if you thought about sending home something, dropping it off at the 418 schools in the office to go home with kids. Because I know, when my children were in elementary school, in 419 particular, everything that went on in this county come home in their little folder on Friday, and I would have to 420 go through 20 pages of stuff. So, you're going hit a greater diversity ethnically, you're going to hit a greater 421 age group. And then, my question. That's my two cents. I'm good at giving an opinion. Looking at the parks 422 and rec, when I was looking through this, and y'all identity what the purpose of, what they are, the key 423 objectives, how are y'all coming up with that? I'm looking at where it breaks out specifically the different parks 424 and areas, so Blackwood Farm Park Master Plan, Little River Regional. 425 426 Leigh Anne King: The Community Policy Profile, different policy documents the County has. So that is a 427 summary report of adopted and relevant policy plans that the County has on the books right now, and we 428 wanted to do a review of all of those so we understood what's out there right now, in terms of policy direction, 429 that we need to be considering in this process that has an influence on this Plan. And they're organized by 430 different topic areas because there are so many of those plans. 431 432 Statler GiIfillen: I assume that the real goal of this, the whole study, it's to take, and you've done, I think, 433 an excellent job of surveying people for what their desires are. I'm not questioning that at all. It's to take those 434 citizens'desires, and then create a plan that becomes a law, that we can promote fulfillment of those goals. 435 436 Leigh Anne King: Yes. I would be careful about saying the law because it is a policy document. So, it's not 437 the same as your Zoning Ordinance, but— 438 439 Statler GiIfillen: It's not quite that rigid. I'd like to ask a stupid question. Who is the largest land property 440 owner in the county? 441 442 Cy Stober: It's either Orange County or Duke Forest. 443 444 Statler GiIfillen: Let's say Duke Forest. The County has a lot within the urban areas, that may be one 445 thing and the impact of the study and promoting things might be different. How many of that list at the top 10 446 or 20, that own the most open rural land, that your study, as I'm understanding, will be most directed at, and Approved 3-6-24 447 some of them are property owners that could be developers of housing, affordable housing, if they are 448 approached, and they are at that level of that type of land, by opening a discussion in a practical manner with 449 them, could then, and that is incorporated into the policies where you can, and it helps promote the right type 450 of development, could be beneficial. I haven't heard a discussion where those major policy owners as a group, 451 have been taken into account. That would be my comment there. Because sometimes that focus is what 452 makes the most practical solutions. The only other question I've got, and this one's going to be a little bit, 453 deals with historic sites, and there are many of them within the County. Now, there is the courthouse in 454 downtown Hillsborough. That is a very significant historic site. That is public, everybody's aware of it. There 455 are also, traditionally, many public sites that are historic that they're not publicized purposely, because if you 456 openly publicize them, that leaves them, and they're rural areas, that leaves them very exposed for vandalism 457 and stealing on those sites. Therefore, traditionally, whether it's England or the United States, many of those 458 sites have not been covered. In what you're doing in land use, because some of those sites may impact 459 potential development areas. I'm just raising this point, is there any discussion of how you've handled that in 460 your report? 461 462 Leigh Anne King: Let me start with the first question. I think it's a really good idea that you raise about 463 thinking about the next round of engagement, which honestly, is probably when the larger landowners would 464 be most interested in engaging, when we're starting to talk about the Future Land Use Map and how that could 465 or might change, if at all. I think that's an important idea to be reaching out to them directly as part of this 466 process to let them know that that's part of the discussion that the County's having in development of this Plan. 467 So, that's a really good suggestion. On the historic sites, in terms of how they might be protected or what 468 might happen to those, I think we definitely want to be looking at those, kind of culturally and historically 469 significant properties, as part of this process and thinking about the land use designations that would apply to 470 those properties and how that could potentially influence them. Particularly if they're places that are valued or 471 if you all have a prioritization of historic properties that you want to be protecting. That might be something 472 that the County has, I haven't looked into that, but— 473 474 Statler Gilfillen: I would discuss that with Peter Sandbeck, who is in charge of historic preservations. 475 476 Leigh Anne King: So, that's something that we could definitely take a look at, as part of the more rural parts 477 of the county, when we're looking at the Future Land Use Map. 478 479 Marilyn Carter: First off, thank you for a very comprehensive update to the committee. I had a chance to 480 go to two of the three engagement workshops and a friend and community member from Cedar Grove 481 attended the Cedar Grove workshop and I was happy to hear her report back that there was good 482 representation at that workshop. And the participation level was very high as well. So, I was pleased to hear 483 about that. And I'm also pleased to hear that the plan is to go into the next engagement window and the future 484 land use alternatives discussion, to bring in other groups that might not have been represented. I appreciate it, 485 Emily and yourself, Leigh Anne, referencing that. I noticed in the report, and this is a question, that there's 486 several groups that are referenced, the Occoneechee tribal communities, as well as, of course, we've already 487 discussed some of the other committee members mentioned renters, the Latino population, and so, will those 488 three groups expressly be engaged as part of that next engagement window? 489 490 Leigh Anne King: Yes, I think that's one of the things that Tate Consulting on our team can be focusing in 491 on, as opposed to 200 different contacts, we can be kind of narrowing that focus a little bit. Not that we won't 492 continue to advertise and reach out to the other organization and groups, but that we might want to be paying 493 specific and putting more energy behind connecting with the folks that we did not connect with this time. 494 495 Marilyn Carter: Okay. Thank you for confirming that. And then, this is more of an observation than a 496 question, but when you showed, and appreciated seeing the Strategic Plan Survey feedback in this context, I Approved 3-6-24 497 haven't looked at it in the past, and noticing, and of course, the focus in this conversation is land use, but it 498 stood out that some of the community priorities, and perhaps the community priority that stood out at the top, 499 was our schools, or near the top, was our schools. And we know that our commissioners are discussing a 500 school bond that will need to be funded, and while that is not the purview of the land use planning, I think 501 there's going to be implications, perhaps, big implications for land use planning, and of course, funding that 502 and how we consider in our economic development discussions, even if the community didn't rate economic 503 development as high, we know that we're going to need to identify ways to grow sustainably so that we can 504 fund those school infrastructure improvements, so this is more of an observation that perhaps steps outside of 505 the bounds of what this committee does, but certainly it's perhaps, on many of our minds as we think about 506 those tradeoffs. So,just an observation. 507 508 Steve Kaufmann: I just want to make one little comment that I appreciated seeing on Page 49—the 509 statement about the limited utility services in the area. Hillsborough sewer utilities are at capacity, likely to 510 shrink without extra funding. This is something that we had to deal with this past year. Is this going to affect 511 the availability of sewage for the rest of the people? Is it going to increase their rates? It seems to be an 512 ongoing concern, has been ever since I moved to Hillsborough. I think when I first moved here, it was the 513 water supply, and they've expanded the water supply, but now it's the sewage. And so, that really affects the 514 ability to expand economic development, and how do you have affordable housing if you don't have water and 515 sewage for the people?And people that live in town that have the water and sewage, their rates are really high 516 and they're complaining about the rates, and they're just going to go higher, possibly. So, I just wanted to 517 throw that out there. 518 519 Lamar Proctor invited members of advisory boards to provide comments. 520 521 Michael Hughes: I'm on the Transportation Advisory Board and the Agricultural Preservation Board. 522 Previously been on the Commission for the Environment and the OWASA Board of Directors. No comments 523 or questions. Just here to listen. Thanks, guys. 524 525 Lamar Proctor invited members of the public to provide comments. 526 527 John Dempsey: Hello, John Dempsey from Hillsborough. Good evening. The Comprehensive Land Use 528 Plan 2050 process offers both an opportunity and a threat. Opening up the County's land use plans and 529 policies for review and reform presents an opportunity to bring land use policy in line with Orange County's 530 Environmental Sustainability Goals. It is an opportunity to set policies that address Urban Stream Syndrome 531 and reduce the current negative impacts of rapid urban development on the streams feeding our watershed. 532 The Orange County Climate Action Plan and the Falls Lake Interim Alternative Implementation Approach, as 533 well as a variety of overlay areas of a special concern, such as the New Hope Corridor Open Space Master 534 Plan, are just some examples of efforts to protect and improve water quality in Orange County. The County 535 should be focused on reforming our UDO to better align with such stated County environmental efforts and 536 initiatives. The Rural Buffer is an example of land use policy that has done exactly that. Since being adopted 537 by a joint planning agreement in 1988, it has been helping to protect the invaluable streams that feed our 538 freshwater resources and drinking water supplies. This is in addition to helping block urban sprawl, and 539 contributing to reinforcing the new agricultural economy that is now helping to supply our restaurants, 540 groceries, and farmers' markets. This is the time during the Comprehensive Land Use Plan 2050 review 541 process, where the County should set a goal of watershed neutral planning and development and begin 542 working towards that end. Much of the current independent science research on water system health and 543 management focuses on that specific topic. The destructive effects of urbanization on water resources, 544 particularly on the health of those streams within areas of rapid growth. The science-based field researches, 545 those with boots-in-the-water, are who should be heard from for a clear understanding of the conditions that 546 need to be addressed during our Comprehensive Land Use 2050 process. There are many public and private Approved 3-6-24 547 resources available for making such informed decisions. North Carolina's Department of Environmental 548 Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency, to name just two. Answers to the challenges posed to our 549 environment by climate change and to our watersheds by Urban Stream Syndrome, are inextricably linked to 550 our land use policy, and thus provide us with a relatively clear path forward. Science-based reforms to our 551 Comprehensive Land Use Plan will contribute to solving those long-term environmental issues that we face 552 together. Now is the time to listen to the boots-in-the-water and bring our UDO into compliance with the 553 science. 554 555 John Dempsey provided a handout of watershed neutral planning and development to the Board. 556 557 Margo Lakin: Good evening, my name is Margo Lakin. I live in Hillsborough. I attended the public input 558 session on January 20. My husband attended the one in Cedar Grove on January 19th. Both sessions saw 559 staggering numbers of concerned citizens who I would argue are the ultimate stakeholders in all of this. Past 560 and current board members from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough spoke to the importance of 561 protecting the watersheds and the rural buffers and our tree canopy and our biodiversity. Past County 562 commissioners shared how they fought for the Rural Buffer back in the day, as they vehemently encouraged 563 us to do the same now. It was alive and clearly articulated consensus we need a science-based 564 Comprehensive Land Use Plan. We need to hear from the scientists, the experts, who have the concrete data 565 needed to make land use decisions. I also want to remind everyone that during the pandemic, many of us 566 were able to put food on our tables, thanks to the farmers of Orange County who were able to farm only 567 because of the Rural Buffer. We must remember this is Orange County. This isn't Chatham or Johnston or 568 Durham or Alamance. It's imperative to listen to the citizens in creating a Comprehensive Land Use Plan that 569 reflects our wants and our needs. I see Thank Science signs in many yards throughout the County. If we 570 want to truly thank science, it's time we bring science to the table when creating this Comprehensive Land Use 571 Plan. Thank you. 572 573 Rob Minton: Thank you for allowing us to speak in public in this very important meeting. My name is 574 Rob Minton. I've lived in Hillsborough, 25, 30 years, and one of the things that we appreciate of this area is the 575 rural buffers. It needs to be emphasized over and over again. The reason it was created is because of the 576 positive impacts that it has on the community as a whole. That's why people come here. I think that's why this 577 county is unique. Compared to other counties, they have sort of bellied up to lax zoning laws and things that 578 happened in Mebane here, recently with Buc-ee's, with very little environmental concerns. Anyway, wanted to 579 emphasize that science, I agree with the previous speaker, science-based evidence is important here, as well 580 as it is to emphasize the fact that there needs to be... the stakeholders here, I feel, are the people who spoke 581 out in public, and I appreciate the survey having us. I was one of the attendees at this one on January the 582 20th and I was very impressed by the fact that so many people overwhelmingly want to keep this community 583 intact with the rural buffers. The reason things have been very different and unique here is because of that 584 and I would like to certainly continue to encourage this committee and survey to include that within their overall 585 presentation. One question that I have here, is actually who are the stakeholders? I agree with one of the 586 Planning Board members that it seems to be a little disconnect here, with one side, I don't even know who the 587 stakeholders are. I don't know if any of us do, other than to survey, the consultation people, that wasn't 588 addressed at all. If the stakeholders are pro-development, I've got a real problem with that. I think public input 589 is important here and I just wanted to close out by saying please keep the current rural buffers. They're so 590 important. Thank you. 591 592 Lamar Proctor read out the list of stakeholder interviews from the packet and asked if there was input from an 593 scientific resources in terms of ecological protection. 594 595 Leigh Anne King confirmed that one part of the consultant team is Equinox, a group with landscape architects 596 and others focused on the science and the planning of natural lands. Approved 3-6-24 597 598 Delores Bailey requested a change in the time Tate Consulting holds the public input meetings, ensuring that 599 there are ample meeting times for residents who work during the day. 600 601 AGENDA ITEM 8: ADJOURNMENT 602 603 MOTION BY Melissa Poole to adjourn meeting. Seconded by Statler Gilfillen. 604 605 MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY. 606 607 The meeting adjourned at 8:54 PM.