Business Meeting

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting. Minutes

The Fiddlehead Corner hearing ran until 10:38 p.m. and drew 33 speakers, and at the end of it the board continued the hearing to March 6 rather than decide. The vote to continue, moved by Chair Bedford and seconded by Commissioner McKee, was unanimous.

The application filed was for a 150-unit community on about 90 acres off Morrow Mill Road at Gold Mine Loop in Bingham Township, mixing apartments, townhouses and houses with a community center, fitness center, gardens and trails, plus two family care centers. At the hearing the applicant's planner, Scott Radway, asked the board to consider 100 units instead, after hearing that 150 was too many. Staff attorney James Bryan advised that the change was not substantial enough to require a new process, though Commissioner McKee objected to the late notice. The project needs a rezoning to a master plan development conditional district, comprehensive plan amendments, and a text amendment to make family care a permitted use. The Planning Board had recommended denial of all three, 9-0 on the rezoning and the plan amendment and 8-1 on the text amendment.

Most who spoke against it live on Morrow Mill Road or Gold Mine Loop and made the same argument in different forms: the rural node designation was never meant to carry this density, there is no public water or sewer, and approving it would invite the same request elsewhere in the county. A former Board of Adjustment chairman who helped write the current land use plans said no well in the area produces more than five or six gallons a minute. Those in favor were largely members of the applicant cooperative and the landowner's family, who argued that a conventional sale would put more houses on the land, that the county needs senior housing, and that the group is a non-profit financing itself rather than a developer.

The board also proclaimed Black History Month and passed its consent agenda unanimously, which carried a state agricultural growth zone grant and the annual school capacity numbers under the adequate public facilities ordinance. Nobody spoke at the general public comment period. The county attorney reported that a workers' compensation case, Robert Crouch v. Orange County, settled at the end of January for $70,100.

How the votes went

Every recorded vote was unanimous among all seven commissioners: the Black History Month proclamation (Hamilton, seconded by Portie-Ascott); opening the Fiddlehead Corner hearing (Hamilton, seconded by McKee); continuing it to March 6 (Bedford, seconded by McKee); and the consent agenda (McKee, seconded by Fowler).

From the published minutes.

Who spoke

33 members of the public spoke.

1. Danny Eddleman asked whether the hearing would be continued given new information, and warned that without explicit limits on how large rural nodes may grow, the amendment becomes the mechanism for strip development and sprawl in a rural watershed.
2. Margaret Craft speaking for the Hands for Development cooperative, said middle-income seniors need more housing and that this is not a for-profit 55+ community.
3. Jean Eddleman whose property of 46 years abuts the eastern boundary, said AR-1 rural node areas were never meant for high-density growth and lack the water and sewer to support it, and that effluent would reach the Haw River and Jordan Lake watersheds.
4. Barbara Warren read a statement from her daughter, an urban ecologist, arguing that dense development should be clustered with the transport, food and walkability infrastructure to support it, and asking the board to deny the application.
5. Ralph Warren gave the board a packet of data on private wastewater failures and USDA figures on farmland at risk, and said the proposal would encourage sprawl and farmland loss.
6. Alan Julich a 46-year resident, read an email from the retired director of UNC's Partnership on Aging supporting the application as aligned with the county's Master Aging Plan and barely scratching the need for senior housing.
7. Galen Kirkpatrick said the applicant is a non-profit rather than a commercial developer, that the residents already live in the county, and that they would make better neighbors than a standard developer.
8. Tom Cheek the landowner at Morrow Mill and Gold Mine Loop whose family has held the land since 1957, said he had always planned to subdivide it and that this is a better and more sustainable use.
9. Sadie Rapp who has lived on Morrow Mill Road all her life, said the applicants have no experience managing developments or senior care facilities, and that the project would strain the aquifer and risk contaminating the water table.
10. Gregory Rapp asked how a for-profit developer is using the non-profit, whether residents would own their homes or a share of the cooperative, and how someone would get their money out, and asked the board to deny it.
11. Bryna Rapp an architect and 35-year resident of Morrow Mill Road, said neighbors are diverse but agree this is a bad idea, and suggested the county instead look at what it allows for accessory dwellings.
12. Pat Peterson said the traffic study figures are probably overstated and that 40 to 50 individual driveways with cleared land around them would have a larger impact than the clustered plan, and that the applicant's 34 members are financing it themselves.
13. Chris Martin said he knows the people behind the proposal, that questioning their intent is unfounded, and that he would rather see this kind of development than sprawl.
14. Cheryl Fox who lives on Gold Mine Loop across from the site, said a streetlight on a 25-foot pole would shine into her family's barn and property and that the density has increased drastically.
15. Mike Fox said the extra traffic would change the character of the rural road and that a project of this scale will disrupt the land, wildlife and residents.
16. Bland Simpson of the Morrow Mill Road community, said approval would invite the same proposal in other rural areas of the county and urged the board to uphold the Planning Board's unanimous opposition.
17. Tom Barren an engineer and project planner, questioned where the money will come from, said planning costs many times the land cost, and asked whether people signing up will get what they think they are getting.
18. Ellen Lohr-Hinkel a longtime member of the applicant group, said the design was worked out to disturb the land and neighbors as little as possible, and that a conventional sale would produce far more houses.
19. Miriam Cowen who farms a three-acre vineyard next to the site with her husband and plans to build a retirement home on the remaining 35 acres, said the plan preserves the land and asked the board to support it.
20. Roberta Romano of Morrow Mill Road said the project does not benefit existing residents, would add social and environmental pressure, and would push the area onto an irreversible course.
21. Coy Isaacs asked the board to vote no, saying the land footprint will not carry the pressure and utilities would have to be run to it.
22. Laura Streitfeld asked the board to deny the application as the Planning Board unanimously recommended, saying it is incompatible with the surrounding area and would slice the property in half.
23. Nathan Bearman a resident of more than 20 years, said the development conflicts with the rural character and the county's land use goals, and urged more community input before amending policy.
24. Steckley Lee asked the board to deny the application out of concern for the watershed and for how the septic fields would affect those downstream.
25. Peter Childers said he does not live nearby but supports neighbors who do, would be more inclined to back it with public water and sewer rather than wells and septic, and does not want it to set a precedent.
26. Kelly Bruce a resident of Morrow Mill Road for more than ten years, said she has no quarrel with the applicants but the proposal is wrong for the area.
27. Josh Setzer who has attended every meeting on the project, said the applicant has no portfolio of properties and raised questions about the leadership and stability of the entity.
28. Steve Kizer a former chairman of the Board of Adjustment and Planning Board member when the current land use plans were written, said no well there produces more than five or six gallons a minute, so planning on well water is not possible, and that if on-site waste management fails the county will have to step in.
29. Atiti Watson of Gold Mine Loop said her family bought their home to be in a rural area and plan to age in place there, and raised noise, traffic, the water supply and the septic location.
30. Carol Mellon of Gold Mine Loop, about 1,000 feet from the site, submitted an article on retirement communities going bankrupt and noted that bankruptcy courts can void promises to return residents' money.
31. Aadra Bhatt said she liked the idea at first but not at 100 units, and drew on growing up in India with one hour of running water a day to question whether the community's water need can be calculated accurately.
32. David D'Agostino said the car wash has had too little attention, and that he might change his mind if neighbors could use the car wash, the community garden and the pickleball courts.
33. Andrew Sham asked everyone opposed to stand, and said this is not objection for its own sake but a community saying a request to change many documents, laws and policies does not belong here.

Thirty-three people spoke at the Fiddlehead Corner hearing, most of them neighbors on Morrow Mill Road and Gold Mine Loop opposing it, with members of the applicant cooperative and the landowner's family in favor. Nobody spoke at the general comment period.

Read from the records the government published after the meeting. Members of the public are private residents and are not named or indexed.