BOCC Retreat

Meeting recap

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

Staff told the board home values alone were expected to rise 50 to 60 percent in the revaluation, and warned that growth of that scale from a revaluation had not been seen before. A commissioner named West Hillsborough as the pattern to watch: lower-cost housing around urban areas, often owned by people on fixed or low incomes, facing the largest jumps in value. Staff noted that revaluation years are not used to set the natural growth rate, so the revenue neutral calculation could shift, and that the tax base is not fixed until later.

On housing, the director set out the county's programmes: the HOME consortium with Chapel Hill and Carrboro, where each gets around $400,000 and the county decides its own spending; landlord incentives including signing bonuses, referral bonuses and a risk mitigation fund paid from voucher administrative fees; and eviction diversion, run through an expediter post. Emergency housing assistance ran at $15 million during the pandemic on federal relief money and is down to about $500,000 this year, with eligibility now set at 30 percent of area median income and a limit of once per household. Cold weather shelter nights have already passed last year's total and staff are seeing burnout. A commissioner argued that transport, at about 20 percent of the average American's income, belongs in any definition of affordable housing, and staff said the scoring matrix had shortened the distance a project must be from transit.

On agriculture, the extension director reported an average farm of 77 acres, smaller than in most counties, and 687 farms in total. Only 2 percent report farming organically in the census, but Orange County leads North Carolina in voluntary organic sales; staff put the gap down to small farms not completing the survey. A commissioner said the net cash farm income figures show farming is not viable without a second income, and staff agreed, noting most farm household income nationally comes from off the farm. He added that adding producers to a thin high-value market makes it unprofitable for everyone, and asked for more help with marketing and routes to market. Staff plan a county food security plan, modelled on Wake County's, by the end of next year.

How the votes went

A retreat with no votes recorded.

From the published minutes.