Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

August 17th, 2026, regular meeting of the Union County Board of Commissioners to order. At this time, I will provide the invocation. If you're so inclined, please join me in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we just want to thank you for all of your blessings, all of your blessings on our nation, on our state, and also our county. Lord, as we look to make decisions tonight as a body, as a group here, Lord, we ask for your guidance and your wisdom concerning the items for discussion tonight. Lord, we want to thank you again for all of your blessings. We ask that you lead, guide, direct us as you see fit. For it is in Jesus' name we do pray. Amen. Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the next item on our agenda is informal comments from the community and i've got two individuals that have signed up to provide informal comments each speaker must address the board from the lectern and begin their remarks by giving their name stating whether they are a resident of Union County and indicating the municipality within which they reside, if any. Each speaker will have three minutes to make remarks. A tone may sound at the conclusion of your remarks. A speaker may not yield any of his or her time to another speaker. Speakers may not discuss matters which are the subject of public hearings, and they must be courteous in their language and presentation. Restatements or repetitive comments by the same speaker, whether at the same or separate meetings, may be ruled out of order and terminated by the chair. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. Speakers may leave written comments and or supporting documents, if any, with the clerk. Our first speaker tonight is John Early.

Good evening, commissioners. I have this shirt on that says, do not muck with my union. The reason I'm here is because someone is mucking with my union big time. There's a company called Tip Towing, and they are located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Their address is Tip Towing, 114 East 28th Street, Charlotte, North Carolina. They are coming over to Union County, and finding people that they think are illegally parked and towing their vehicles up to their lot in Charlotte, which is in what they call now Noda. And people are having, Union people, citizens of Union County are having to go to Charlotte and pay well over $1,000 to get their vehicles back. This is unacceptable. Does Union County not have towing companies? Why does a Charlotte towing company coming to Union County and towing vehicles back to Charlotte. Have they got law enforcement privileges that we don't know about? Is this anything y'all can address? I mean, don't mess with my union. They're doing it. And nobody wants to do anything about it. Somebody needs to do something about it. I don't know. I don't know if y'all can do anything about it or if the state legislature has to do anything about it. But I mean, what's next? Is Sheriff McFadden gonna send his deputies across the county line to come arrest Union County citizens? I don't think Sheriff Cathy would appreciate that. But the citizens of Union County don't appreciate Towing companies, I've seen them at work. When I'm working, I drive around and deliver auto parts part-time. When I'm working, I've seen them operate. They have scouts they send out, and they tag cars, and they call their buddies on the tow truck, and they come pick them up. And they don't have the name of the company on the tow truck. I've seen this happen in person. I slowed down and took a look, and they looked at me like they wanted to hit me or something. If there's something you can do about this, please do. It's got to be addressed. We just can't. I mean, this is unacceptable. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Our next speaker tonight is Madeline. Bile, okay, sorry about that.

No, I get it. Hi, my name's Madeline Bile. I am a resident of Union County. I live in Monroe, and I would actually like to discuss Monroe. So last week at Monroe City Council meeting, they discussed concerns around the homeless population that gathers around the community shelter. And I do agree that there are legitimate concerns, but the majority of the discussion centered around how to make things better for the residents at the nearby luxury apartments that were built four years after the community shelter and less around what to do to help the disenfranchised. They discussed it as a problem to get rid of and not a community to aid. These are members of our community that have nowhere to go when the shelter is at capacity. The average monthly rent in Union County is $1,800, but the average SSI check is only 900. While the community shelter is in Monroe, they serve Union County. Affordable housing or addiction treatment are not one community's challenge. I would like to implore the county commissioners to speak with Monroe City Council to see how we can work together to find a way to help these individuals in the long run and not to just brush the problem under the rug. Thank you.

Thank you. So that concludes all the speakers that I had signed up to speak. Is there anyone from the audience that would like to provide informal comment? Seeing none, we will move on to our next agenda item. So the next two items on our agenda are public hearings, one for a text amendment to the Union County Development Ordinance and one for the designation of county-owned property as economic development property Before opening the first public hearing, I will read the rules that will apply for each of these public hearings. Each speaker must address the board from the lectern and begin their remarks by giving their name, stating whether they are residents of Union County and indicating which municipality within they reside, if any. Each speaker will have three minutes to make remarks. A tone may sound at the conclusion of your remarks. A speaker may not yield any of his or her time to another. Speakers shall limit their remarks to the subject of the public hearing. Speakers may leave written comments and or supporting documents, if any, with the clerk to the board. The first public hearing tonight on our agenda is item 26-412 for text amendments to sections 25.010, table of allowed uses 25.020, other use category 30.210, data centers, and 30.220, crypto mining operations of the Union County Development Ordinance. I will now recognize Lee Jensen, Planning Director, for comments from staff. Welcome, Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So again, as you stated, this is a text amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance of Union County. It really is about putting some guardrails in place for the emerging uses of, as we call them, data centers. And I'll be brief. It's really just one slide here. This covers data centers and crypto mining operations. So this text amendment, data centers would be allowed as a special use in heavy industrial with supplemental standards. It would also provide some definitions of what data centers and crypto mining operations are. And I believe those text amendments were included in your agenda pack, so you should have those. And then the supplemental standards for both data centers and crypto mining operations is kind of broken up into two separate sections here. There's some standards for both, and then there's some separate standards for just crypto mining. So the supplemental standards for both would cover things like setbacks, landscaping, lighting, noise, there would be a pre-construction sound study required, and then any subsequent noise that would be above that would have to be mitigated. Backup power generation such as generators would be for temporary use only. Utility capacity would have to have something from water, sewer, and electrical providers saying they could handle the increased capacity that's coming from the use of those data centers. And then they would have to have some decommissioning plans. So what's going to happen if this thing goes away? How are we going to return the site to a pre-development type condition? Or as close to pre-development condition as they can get it. And then some supplemental standards for crypto mining operations have to be in a fully enclosed building. It can't be in a containerized outdoor structure unless that meets building code. A containerized structure is like a Oh man, I just lost my train of thought there. It's like a container, like you say, a shipping container. Thanks, Patrick. Again, backup powers for temporary use only, and then the electrical provider would have to provide something saying that they can handle that demand. So general guardrails that kind of for the text amendment. Heavy industrial, in case you're curious, Two primary areas where heavy industrial are. Patrick has a GS map. I'm going to hijack it here. First primary area is around the airport. So this dark blue is heavy industrial. So you can see some, there's a few spots around along Airport Road. The primary area though is along Gold Mine. Some of this is, I think some of this is actually county owned. It's part of the industrial park. There are some other parcels that are next to it that are privately owned, but it's a pretty big chunk there. Again, some smaller pieces along Airport. You know, a couple acres here and there. And then, The other primary areas down at Jarvis, there is another area in an industrial park over off of Gribble Road. I think it's Gribble Road. Smith Farm, sorry. It's pretty small. It's about two and a half acres, I believe. That's kind of a leftover piece when the county used to have that whole area's own, but it's slowly been annexed by Stallings and Indian Trail, and that's sort of a leftover strip. But the other primary area is down at jars so you see that's the runway at jars right there so a lot of that area around the the runway is zoned heavy industrial and that that's all owned by jars so any existing heavy industrial piece if this text amendment were to pass would require a special use permit any piece that wasn't zoned heavy industrial, of course, would be a rezoning that would come to you for approval, likely in the form of a conditional rezoning with all the special use items in place so you could either approve it or deny it. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Lee. Lee, do you have the text? Can you? Yes, sir. Because I think that there was a couple of things that maybe we had some questions about or wanted to look at a little bit further. While you're pulling that up, I'm gonna open the floor. So I do not have anyone signed up to speak on this public hearing. But I do wanna open the floor for the public. So if there is anyone in the audience that would like to speak regarding this item, please come forward.

Okay.

I'm sorry, you need to approach the lectern.

Do we have any open requests, or is this precautionary?

We do not have any open requests.

Thank you. Okay. Any other comments from the public? Okay. Thank you. Board, any questions for Lee? Commissioner Bauckman?

Yes.

And, Lee, you may or may not know the answers to the questions I'm going to ask you, and I'm going to expose my ignorance on the data centers. But the typical footprint of a data center.

They can range from just really big to now some of the technology is – can be relatively small. So there is really no one-size-fits-all data center. It used to be that they were pretty large and required a lot of water and a lot of electricity. But now some of the technology is switching over to some smaller sort of I guess smaller, but more of them data centers in certain spots and actually using some different technologies to help cool and power. So that it's kind of there's not a one size fits all.

Okay. So water usage. That was going to be my next question. They use a large amount of water.

They can. Again, some of the technology is changing, and there's different technologies out there, but that is a way to cool those data centers. These are just a bunch of big, it's a room with a bunch of servers in it, so they get really hot, you use a lot of energy, and they have to have some way to cool those things down. Water is a really easy, cheap way to do it. But a lot of them, there are, to be honest with you, off the top of my head, I can't remember what the technologies are called, but there are kind of like coolant in your car. There's other ways to cool those data centers down that are coming out. But water is a big one. And the ones that use water can, some of them can, use quite a bit.

So is it a self-contained system that recirculates, or is it released into the environment?

Some of them can be self-contained. That's what a lot of the ones that use water are switching to, is that they're self-contained and it just keeps cycling through. Eventually, that does have to be cycled out, though. It can't stay in there forever. But some of them do, again, when it does dump, whether that's over a period, a long period of time or a short period of time, it either gets put into a septic system or it gets put into the municipal sewer system.

Is it considered hazardous waste at that point?

I don't know if it's considered fully hazardous or not, but there's some not so good stuff in there. Right.

The noise level around the data center, is it a noisy neighbor?

So that's one of those that's been out there for debate. I've listened to a lot of hearings and watched a lot of, or read a lot of comments that people have given, and they're kind of divided. Some people say that it's kind of a background noise, that it's not loud, but it's just, It's louder and it's just very aggravating. Some people say it's very loud. Some people say they can't hear it at all. So I think it may depend on the individual. But that's why part of what we have in here is that sound study to essentially say you have to do a pre-development sound study to establish a baseline. What's the baseline, where you are today, and if that data center would increase the sound out there, then you've got to mitigate that.

Do they use an enormous amount of power?

They can, yes, sir. In fact, some of the new technology are sort of like micro-nuclear plants that they're talking about to power some of them. But the ones that hook into the grid, yeah, they can use a lot of power. Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Woodruff.

So, Lee, thanks for the work you put into the text amendment. Sure. I appreciate it. Just a couple of areas I'd like to see addressed if possible. So Commissioner Balcom just mentioned noise. Can we address low frequency noise, like the noise that we just don't hear with the human ear, and ensure that that low vibration that emanates from data centers, that we measure that and make sure that the setbacks are appropriate.

Yeah, we could research that. We did have some setbacks. I didn't point them out. There they are on your screen, some minimum site design standards. So they'd have to be 100 feet away from property lines and 500 feet away from any residential zoning districts or lots with existing dwellings, and then 1,000 feet from schools, daycares, assisted living, or similar congregate care-type facilities. I didn't say that before, so I just wanted you to see that.

so um if you could just research um i found that there are three counties that have setbacks that are farther than 100 feet or a thousand feet even so macon county has a one mile setback from residences and public schools and cherokee county has a one mile separation also from residences churches and educational facilities and uh henderson actually has a two mile buffer okay and just one other item the abandonment clause we have two years could we maybe make it one year and I don't know if it's possible but um to have like a decommissioning bond get some money up front in case they do it does need to be decommissioned I've seen that now before just one other thing so I was asked recently I know some other municipalities are implementing moratoriums and data centers and that that's great for them I mean it gives them an opportunity to adopt an ordinance that is a beneficial to their residents and I just want to mention that you've been working on this for a while and really no need for us to have a moratorium and I appreciate the work you've put in and we're pretty much there sure I appreciate that yes sir I want to you said you said Macon Henderson and what was the third

Oh, Cherokee. Cherokee. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Woodrow.

Lee, I got a couple of things too. So, um, yeah, I, I'm kind of agree with commissioner Woodrow here that, um, well, first of all, I was, I was glad to see that the sound study was being required. Um, so as I was looking through the text amendment, uh, I think that that's something that's obviously important. My question was, is because we, we, we start talking about like sound mitigation and, that it would have to be required depending on the results of the sound study. And I'm paraphrasing here a little bit, but my question is how specific can we get with this? Is there a way to define what sound mitigation measures would be appropriate? Are we getting too far into the weeds for a text amendment? I guess what I'm trying to say is in my professional work, more specificity is a good thing. And so I'm thinking maybe that perhaps we should spell out what would be the appropriate sound mitigation measures.

You could either spell it out or you could give... examples within the ordinance to help maybe steer somebody in a certain direction. When I think of sound mitigation, the two primary ways you can do it is one is, well, three. One's through setbacks. You just keep increasing those setbacks. is through vegetation. So if you have increased setbacks in vegetative buffers, then you can achieve some sound mitigation there. Or three is some way within the building. So you have acoustical walls that you put in the building to help buffer that sound. So those are the three primary ways that I've seen. So I think if we're going to steer somebody in a certain direction, those are probably the three ways we would do it.

Okay. Well, it was just a thought, and I don't know if there's a way that we could specify that or not. But the other thing is the setbacks. And so I tend to agree with Commissioner Wedger. I'd like to see us maybe research a little bit more on that 500-foot minimum setback from residential zoning districts. I understand that we need to be cognizant of our county. right and and what we're dealing with here in union county um but at the same time i would prefer to see a higher number there now whether that number is 750 feet you know whether it's a thousand feet um but if we can do a some additional research there regarding minimum setbacks from residents sure but i think that this is a good first step and I'm glad that we're discussing this because as of right now, we have nothing in our UDO that identifies data centers. So I think this is a good step for our board to take, and I certainly appreciate your efforts in this. Sure. Any other questions or comments for Lee? Feedback? All right. Thank you, Lee. Thank you. All right, I will now close the public hearing. The second public hearing is item 24-464, and that is for designation of county-owned property as economic development property. I will open the public hearing and recognize, am I recognizing Patrick Nyland? Okay.

I was trying to get him reset.

All right, well, I'm gonna recognize Patrick Nyland, the deputy county manager, for comments from staff.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I gotta undo what Lee did to me here a second. Okay. All right. Thank you. Back in early 2025, the board authorized us to purchase 27 acres through two pieces of property. This was just north of the bypass in the town of Wingate. We have worked over the last year to annex that into the city limits of Wingate. We have also got that rezoned from a R40 to a light industrial to allow us to to try to attract both industrial and commercial development around that interchange. So we are asking the board to designate this land for economic development purposes. It was not done when we purchased it, so we're just going back to try to get you to authorize that use. So this is a chance to give the public a chance to comment on that request.

Thank you, Patrick. Okay, so once again, I have no speakers signed up for this public hearing. I'll now open the floor if there's anyone in the audience that would like to make comments. Seeing none. Any questions for Patrick from the board? All right, thank you, Patrick. I will now close the public hearing. The next item on our agenda is item 26-440, recognized Lifesaver Award recipients. I'll now again recognize Deputy County Manager Patrick Nyland for brief comments concerning this item. Welcome back, Patrick.

Yes, sir. This is a much more interesting topic for everyone. We're here tonight to recognize two of our Union County Sheriff's Deputies for some lifesaving actions. On Sunday, April 5th, 2026, at approximately 3 a.m., Union County Sheriff's Deputies responded to a reported structure fire on Seacrest Shortcut Road in Indian Trail. Deputies Paul Garcia and Jason Frazier arrived nearly simultaneously before firefighters and a large portion of the home was engulfed in flames. As they ran toward the home, they heard a woman screaming for help from a window in the opposite side. Without hesitation, the deputies broke the window and created an opening large enough to safely remove the woman from the burning home. They placed her in a patrol vehicle and remained with her until emergency personnel arrived. Unfortunately, there was another individual in the house that did not make it out and succumbed to that fire. But there is no doubt this woman is alive because of these two deputies. And it's every day our employees are put in positions and they deliver over and over again, and we couldn't be more proud. So I'd like to ask Sheriff Cathy, do you have any words you want to share? Come on up, Sheriff.

I just want to say I'm proud to be the sheriff of Union County and the place that's appropriate for us to live. And these officers, they don't get that from training. That's because they know the difference between right and wrong. and did not hesitate to move forward and do the job that we're out there every day to do. I just want to say how proud I am of them. And I'm proud of the county and our commissioners, the support they've given us to be able to move forward and all the things that we do here in the county. And this is just a big part of it. And we're proud of you and we're proud of them. Thank you, Sheriff.

So if you all could join me in congratulating and thanking the two deputies for their actions.

Thank you again, folks. Congratulations. Thank you for what you do for us. Our next agenda item is item 26 dash four 58. And that is information technology earns national top five ranking and achievement award. I will recognize John Emilio information director or information technology director for brief comments on this item. Welcome John.

Thank you. Congratulations again. All right, so good evening, Chairman Helms, Vice Chair Helms, Commissioners, and County Management. It's my privilege tonight to share national recognition of the innovative work happening across Union County. I'm proud to announce that Union County has been ranked fourth in the nation in the 2026 Digital County Survey among counties with populations between 250,000 and 500,000. There are two things, excuse me, that make this recognition especially meaningful. First off, this is the eighth year in a row that Union County's finished in the top 10 nationally. And secondly, this is the highest ranking we've ever received since moving into a larger population category. In fact, Union County continues to be the smallest county in this category, not only in population, but as in budget as well, making this recognition even more significant. The Digital County Survey conducted by the Center for Digital Government and the Association of Counties, also known as NACO, recognizes counties that are using technology and innovation to improve how they operate and serve their residents. This year, the judges specifically recognized our focus on collaboration, including regular IT meetings with departments to discuss technology governance, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies. They also highlighted our major approach to artificial intelligence, including Sprout, and it's our AI-powered website assistance, thanks to Liz and her team at PC, our phased Microsoft Copilot Studio initiative, and our AI acceptable use guidelines. The GIS team was also identified for completing UC Atlas, which is our new online mapping and property platform, which is making it easier for residents and staff to access information about property, infrastructure, zoning, utilities, and more. But I want to emphasize that technology doesn't create these accomplishments, it's the people that do. this recognition reflects the outstanding work of our cyber security team our gis team infrastructure and tech support teams as well as many departments throughout the county that embrace technology and work collaboratively collaboratively with it i want to specifically thank our partners pc strategy and innovation human services library and the fire marshal's office for contributing their accomplishments to the digital county survey submission and most importantly a big thanks to you all the board and county management for your leadership, support, and willingness to invest in technology and innovation. Our goal isn't to win awards. Our goal is to use technology to make Union County more secure, more efficient, more accessible, and better able to serve our residents. I'm very proud of our IT team and their work ethic and terribly proud to lead them. I'd like to ask our team members in attendance to come on up. Van Dale is our operations manager. Elizabeth Trevino is our business manager. Sally Fumamar is our GMS analyst, GIS analyst. Brent Hardest is our project manager. And I want to thank all of them. So go ahead, up around.

Amen.

All right, so it's now time for consideration of any changes to our agenda. We have at least two brief edits to the agenda this evening. We can take a vote on both of them together, I believe. Is that right, Mr. Kaye? Thanks, sir. So first, staff has requested that we add the following action to item 26-433, that is bid award and construction contract Union County group home renovation. to adopt capital project ordinance number 319A and capital project ordinance number 400. This is on our consent agenda, I believe, for tonight. And a copy of the revised action requested in the CPOs has been displayed on the screens here in the room. And each of the commissioners should have a copy of the CPOs requested for adoption at your seats. The second item is that at staff's request, we've been asked to remove item 26-492, and that is the EMS base station discussion from tonight's business agenda for discussion at a future meeting. Is there a motion to approve both revisions to the agenda as proposed?

I'll make a motion that we approve as amended.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. So we have a motion. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Are there any additional motions regarding revisions or amendments to either the consent or the business agenda? Okay. Is there a motion to approve the items listed on consent as amended?

I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as amended.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. All those in favor of the motion say aye. All right, so now we are at the business portion of our agenda. The first item for business is item 26-500, a discussion regarding a cost of community services study. And I will again recognize Lee Jensen, Planning Director, for brief comments concerning this item. Welcome back, Lee. We missed you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this will be a pretty brief presentation, but maybe some discussion regarding this item too. I believe County Manager Matthews asked me to place this item on the agenda to have some discussion around cost of community services studies. So what is a cost of community services study? They're used to determine the fiscal contribution of existing local land uses. Essentially what they do is they put agricultural land on equal ground with residential, commercial, and industrial. They're snapshot in time. It doesn't help you predict future costs or revenues or anything like that. It's just a snapshot. But they're really used to help local officials make informed land use decisions. How do you go about doing one of these studies? you collect your data on local revenues and expenditures. That essentially comes from your budget. So you've already got that information. You group that data together and allocate them to the community's major land use categories. Most of these studies, they group those categories around residential, business or commercial, some people call them different things, and agriculture. And then they calculate revenue to expenditure ratios for each land use category. And that's pretty much it. It's a pretty straightforward study. The difficult part is grouping that data around those particular land use categories, because you've got to get in and dig into the different departments and figure out, OK, well, how should we allocate those revenues and those expenditures? And the slide, I know you've got a couple in your agenda pack, maybe one or two that were sent to you by email. But the county actually did one back in 2004. And that was done by Jerry Dorfman. I think at the time he was... in University of Georgia, now he's at North Carolina State University. He's still doing these. What it found in 2004 was that for every dollar in expenditures, residential returned 77 cents. Commercial and industrial, they were grouped together, that returned $2.44, and ag returned 4.13. And then the county's example, I know the one that you got, I think the two recent ones from North Carolina were the ones that you received. Those were Johnston and Wake counties. Wake also did a breakdown such as this. I don't think Johnston's did. But Union County back in 2004, the average break-even value for a home, meaning that what the home had to be valued at to essentially break even on that residential, on that expenditure versus revenue side was $204,000. And I just threw these two bullets in here because I thought they were interesting. Then it went further and they started looking at, well, what if the home has kids? So back in 2004, the average break even for a two-child home was $667,000. And I don't have these in the slide, but I looked at Johnston and Wake's, and their ratios for every dollar in revenue, for residential, for every dollar in revenue, the county spends $1.43. For commercial, for every dollar, they spend 23 cents. And then for every dollar in revenue for ag, they spend 81 cents.

Will you repeat the last line?

The ag? Yes, sir. So for every dollar that the county receives in revenue, they spend $0.81. Wake, again, very similar. For residential, for every dollar of revenue, the county spent $1.09. And then for ag, it was $0.24 is what they spent. And then for commercial, it was $0.08. So it seems to be that on some of these more recent studies, it's kind of flipped. On the older ones like this, ag and commercial were, they both, I guess if you want to look at it that way, they both made money, but the ag was a little bit more. It seems like it's flipped a little bit in favor of the commercial, but they're still the, I guess, the revenue generators and the residential is not. These are... Relatively, I will say, cheap studies to do. They're not very expensive. There's a number of firms in North Carolina that do them. Again, I think that Dr. Dorfman still does a few. There's a group, a couple of consulting firms that I know of that do them, and then there's another group out of Mount Olive University that does them too. I'll be happy to answer any questions about those or get, take any further direction from the board.

So, um, Lee, I've, I've got some comments I've been, I've been waiting for this one right here for, for a long time. Cause, uh, it's been, it's been a long time coming and you know, when you, I'm glad that you brought up the, uh, I think, I think it was the O four study. Yes, sir. Yeah. Um, because that was, it's been 22 years, 22 years ago. And a lot of things have changed. I'm sure, you know, since that O four study was done, um, I'm glad that you brought up the results of the Wake study and the Johnston County study because I had notes on that too. And I don't want this point to get lost because you mentioned this and you said that the Johnston County, and understand, Johnston County is a much similar, much better comparison to Union County than what Wake County would be as far as size, population, and a number of other socioeconomic factors. But if you look, they broke it down and they looked at residential, commercial, and then agriculture. And what they're doing is they're comparing and they're saying for every $1 of ad valorem tax revenue that comes into, in this case, Johnston County, for every $1, they are paying out $1.43 in the cost of services. So that's not paying for itself. And obviously we've known for quite some time that residential growth does not pay for itself in terms of cost to serve because there's a number of things that have to be funded to serve that residence. So you've got schools, for example. Public schools is a big one. You've got our sheriff's deputies, you've got fire, you've got EMS, and we have to have those services. but you can make the case that residential's taken out of the bucket more than what they're putting in, and if you compare that to, say, commercial, at least the Johnston study showed that for every $1 that that's bringing in in Avalorum tax revenue, they're spending out 23 cents, 23. Agriculture, you mentioned this, $1. Avalor tax revenue, 81 cents as far as the expenses or the cost to serve. And, you know, again, I don't want that to get lost because, you know, right now we're sitting and this board has made numerous comments about this, but we're sitting at not at least 90% residential. I mean, we're teetering probably 90% residential and then 10% everything else. And it's just my opinion, but I don't feel as though that trajectory is sustainable. It's not sustainable for the people that we serve. It's not sustainable for our taxpayers, because essentially what we're saying is that 90% of all the taxes being paid are coming from the people, and we need to diversify that. So I look at this study as an opportunity, an opportunity for us to get concrete, up-to-date numbers regarding Union County specifics. So where do we match up on residential? Where do we match up on commercial and agriculture? And we know that commercial and agriculture are probably gonna be in the black, but we also know that we're losing as far as residential is concerned. So we have to diversify. And I think that, um, I think it's important for, for the board to consider doing the study. And I think it's more important that we consider doing it from a start or getting that study performed by a third party instead of doing something in house. Because I think that the, if we have a third party come in and do an independent study, then that takes away any kind of question about. you know, any kind of improprieties that may have taken place here. So I think that number one is very, very important. And the fellow that did the study, and I can't remember his name, but I think that he probably made a wise decision, moved him from Georgia to NC State. But what I'll say is that doing this study has got at least three benefits, at least three. So number one, to your point, you mentioned this, so the study can certainly help the county in making decisions regarding land use decisions and things of that nature. So that's benefit number one. But I think too that this also provides us an opportunity to offer some benefit to our municipal partners. And the reason why I say that is because many municipalities there are some exceptions but many municipalities they don't have things like utilities or I mean they're they're not paying for school systems and so some municipalities I think are more apt to look at a residential project and look at it and say okay well we're gonna we're gonna press forward with this residential project regardless of the cost because that's putting bottom line into our coffers with ad valorem tax revenue and But I think that there's a tendency to ignore the cost to serve. And when folks make the decisions to do things like that, it's still the people, the people that we all serve, that pay the bill. So in short, we're all subsidizing growth. We're all subsidizing residential growth. And that's what this study is showing, is the amount that we're subsidizing. So you might get two separate bills if you live in a municipality, right? But bottom line is, you're still paying it. So I think the second benefit is with municipal partners. So we can show exactly what that cost to serve is. And maybe we can foster better collaboration with an overall vision for the county that would include those municipalities. And then the third thing is, I think that this provides us some benefit when we discuss things with our state delegation. So our state legislature. And I think this is gonna give us those hard numbers because, and I think we need those numbers too, let me clarify, because what we've seen in recent years, all of us on this board have seen these bills, these growth bills, like House Bill 765, for example, and there's been many, many others where it has tried to incentivize residential construction throughout the state. And so I think that it's important that we have this information so that in our discussions with our state legislatures or legislators, we can provide them with the information and have, well, a lot more ammunition at our disposal to make our case. So one question I had is, is there a way, I'm sure that we can because I just assumed that you know, what we would be doing is going to be similar to Johnston, the Johnston study that was in our agenda packet. And I'm good with that. But I also, and this may be an additional cost, but I would like to explore defining that break-even point as we did in 04. And so I'd like to know what the current break-even point is. So if we can inquire about something like that. Okay. Board, is there any other questions or comments for Lee?

I have a question. How long would it take to complete this study?

So it really depends on the consultant. I know that Wake County, in talking with them, it took their consultant about a year to complete their study. They had some issues. I don't think Johnston's took quite that long. So I think that would be probably something that we would put in place if we put together a scope of work. We would want it done within a certain period of time.

Any other questions or comments for Lee?

Just out of curiosity, what all would be revealed in this study? Would we actually get, like I see, in 2004, the price of the home with a family with two children before it was breakeven, $667,000, which seems crazy to me for 2004. Right. So would we get... That figure, along with the figures like you just quoted us with Johnston County, the residential compared to the commercial compared to the ag.

We can get that. I believe the Wake County study included some of those break-even points. So that is a possibility to get. Okay.

Thank you. Mr. Woodruff.

just one quick question for you so the chairman mentioned that we sit at roughly 90 residential to 10 everything else i've heard experts say a healthy ratio is 70 30 60 40. in your opinion where do you think we should be sitting

That's a loaded question.

It is a loaded question. A lot of it depends on philosophy and where you want to go as a county. There's probably places that would be fine at 9010. But

know it's it's really your sort of choices to which way you want to go i would say that if you you know that 70 30 60 40 ratio is is probably in the sweet spot yeah so the the hardest hardest thing is to move that needle when you're 90 10. yeah um you know you can add a significant amount of investment for commercial and you're still only going to move that needle just a little bit so to get to 70 30 is going to take a long time and a lot of land use decisions to get there but i would i'd agree with lee it's probably in that 70 30 60 40 range i think that's an aspiration but something that's going to take a long long time to get there anything else for lee

Well, so Lee, where do we stand right now? So at this point, have we identified then, aside from, I mean, do we have a list of folks that we can contact, maybe that did the Johnson study and the Wake study? Yes, sir. Or perhaps this individual that did our previous study? Mm-hmm. Use the, well, probably the Wake study would be more appropriate since it's got a break-even point.

And I'm sure the folks that did the Johnson study can do that too. Sure. Once you get the, Once you do that first part and group the revenues and expenditures by land use, the rest of it just kind of falls into place. So I'm sure they can do it too.

Okay. So what would be our next steps then if the board wanted to proceed? Should we develop a scope of work?

I think we'd develop a scope of work and get with maybe three or four different providers and get some calls.

Okay. Well, I'm willing to make that motion so I'll make the motion to direct staff to develop the cost or the scope of work For a third party or independent study to be performed For the cost of community services in Union County and that would include Residential commercial and agriculture as well as the residential break-even point as we saw in the wake study and then also direct staff then to bring us back cost and options for the study. OK. Does that cover it, Mr. Kaye?

It does. You mentioned scope of work in addition to cost, and I assume all the other terms and conditions that might be necessary in those agreements.

Yes, sir. That would be correct. I would include other terms and conditions in that motion.

I'm here on behalf of the terms and conditions.

Thank you, sir. All right, so there's a motion. Any discussion on the motion? All right, all those in favor of the motion say aye.

Aye.

Thank you, Lee. All right, Lee, it's just a busy, it's your night tonight, Lee. I mean, we've got, our next item is item 26-470, discussion regarding minor subdivision update. And once again, welcome, Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is an update. Back in, I think it was November or December of last year, you asked me to work with the Land Use Board to come back with some recommendations on the minor subdivision process. Kind of everything was on the table. So really took a deep dive on three separate items. One, was a discussion of the UDO definition of lot in section 105, 130, discussion of the minor versus major lot threshold and the parent parcel date, and then the idea of a family subdivision exception. Let me get my notes here. So the first item, that the Land Use Board undertook was this idea of the definition of a lot. And the issue there is sort of this second really long sentence that's highlighted. The first part's pretty straightforward. It's a parcel of land whose boundaries have been established by some legal instrument. However, that second kind of highlighted text there says, if a public body with the authority of eminent domain basically puts a road through a piece of property and it effectively can't be used as one piece, then... for the purposes of the development ordinance, it's two lots. And the reason that's important is when we start getting into some other sections and talking about what that means and how you develop property, then essentially it becomes two sort of parent parcels, if you will. The way that kind of carries over into minor subdivisions is, today a minor subdivision is up to eight lots out of a parent parcel. So you take this definition into account, and you have a road, an existing road, or it could be a new road that DOT built, but most of the time it's an existing road that splits a parent parcel, then you could essentially do 16, if it's one road, you could do 16 lots, eight on one side, eight on the other side. And that was the idea here, was to amend this to, do away with that second sentence. It would say that somebody couldn't develop their property, they could just, it would just be a major subdivision at that point. If they wanted to do more lots, it'd be a major instead of a minor, instead of 16 lot minor. But we took this to Land Use Board, we had a lot of discussion over several different meetings, and ultimately Land Use Board's consensus was to keep the definition as is, to not change it. I wanted to bring that back and share with you their update. Of course, I'm also here to take any direction you might give as far as any text amendments you might want to see. I'll stop at the lot before I move on to the next one if there's any discussion around that.

Any questions or comments for Lee?

One comment. Commissioner Baldwin. And for disclosure, Lee, I challenged Lee with this situation earlier today. So I found a parcel of land that is divided by two roads. I said, so in this situation, and we pulled up the parcel, how many lots could be put on this parcel before it is considered a major subdivision? And that number is 24. So we're not perfectly locked in at 16 under the current definition, the current table. That's correct.

You know, we've had a lot of discussion about this definition. And, Lee, I appreciate the explanation and you kind of pointing this out about how important this definition is because, to your point, this definition is going to affect things that we're fixing to talk about with other aspects of minors. But bottom line is... We define a minor currently as eight lots or less, correct? Correct. And so what this sentence does, this in bold right here, it essentially creates a loophole. It's a legal loophole where you can have essentially, in the case that Commissioner Malcolm just brought up, you could have 24 homes that are being built under minor subdivision rules. Correct?

That's right.

And so, I mean, I guess, you know, when we previously talked about it, I always thought I had 16 in my head, you know, because you've got a road and you think eight on one side and then eight on the other. But that's a lot. That's a lot. And I think at some point we have to sit here and say, okay, well, the definition of a minor subdivision as it stands today currently is eight lots or less. Why are we allowing, in this case, 24 under the same rules as minors? And the rules are different. The requirements for minors are different than what they are majors. So there's going to be differences there with all kinds of different things. Lee, you can probably speak to it right off the top of your head, but I'm thinking buffers and setbacks and all kinds of requirements there. So I think at some point, you know, At some point, we have to understand that eight lots or less is a minor, and anything above that, anything above that threshold, and we got more to talk about here in a few minutes about threshold, but anything above that threshold, it's not a minor, it's at that point a major. And so, I look at this and my thought is that we have to clean up this language. I'll open it up for discussion, but I would be in favor of changing this language so that it is much more straightforward and we have a minor subdivision and this loophole is closed. Any comments from the board regarding that? thoughts about this particular definition?

No, I'm going to be in agreement with you, Chairman Helms. I do believe that the language does need to be cleared up because there's too much fluctuation in it. What we would describe as a major subdivision in case in point Commissioner Baucom research today showing 24 and they're not having to abide by the same rules and regulations as other subdivisions so I definitely think that we need to to narrow the scope and clean this up definitely yeah it just doesn't seem fair to me that you're getting a major subdivision with minor with the requirements of a minor subdivision

Lee, what do you want to do? Do you want to take these one at a time and then come back to them, or do you want to get direction one at a time?

I think one at a time would be fine. Or if you want to do it all as one, I'm open. Either way. It might be easier to do one at a time.

Well, listen, I will make that motion that we direct staff to revise the current definition in our UDO of a lot, eliminating the language that would allow for a a minor subdivision to exceed, I'm trying to think about how to word this, to exceed eight lots on one side of the road and then eight lots on the other, How am I doing, Mr. Kaye? Help me out here.

You're doing great. One thing I might suggest is that rather than be tied into changing only the definition of a lot, that we might be freed to look at some other potential fixes to close that loophole if they all arrive at the same point of eliminating the loophole that allows you to get more than eight lots per.

yeah okay yeah I think that's a good idea and I think that's probably the wisest thing to do then I'll amend the motion then to just direct staff to bring us back strategies for mitigating that situation where you have you know lots on both sides of the road that still constitute a minor okay was that sufficient

That is sufficient. One thing that caught my attention, for example, is that it's a private street that is created, and anybody can create a private street. So perhaps there are some other definitions that we can look at as well that might help us get to the same conclusion that you're driving at.

Thank you, Mr. Kaye. All right, so we've got a motion on the table. Any discussion on that motion? All those in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. All right, Mr. Jensen. Aye.

Next discussion point was the major versus minor lot threshold. I guess the question is, is eight lots the right number for a minor subdivision? So there was a lot of research that the Land Use Board looked at, looked at some data from some other counties that are sort of comparable to Union County. And although the Land Use Board did not reach any full consensus on this, they did have a lot of discussion regarding resetting the parent parcel date. And I know three of you, Mr. Ledger, I don't think you've been part of these discussions, but parent parcels in Union County go back to February 14th, 1978. That's when sort of the land use ordinance started regulating parcels of property. So you can create eight lots out of that lot that existed in 1978, and that's your minor subdivision. So the idea about resetting that date is 1978 it was looked at as a generational thing so in 1978 that was 48 years ago so that it's been been a while and and the thought was to reset that date to maybe allow some more divisions of those properties for probably people who just want to do a couple lots here and there maybe for family members or maybe just to sell off a couple of lots you know to help pay some some some some bills because a lot of those parcels have been divided. They've given lots to two kids. They gave their lots to two kids and they gave their lots to two kids. So you get to eight lots pretty fast. So the idea of resetting that date and then having a sort of automatic reset provision built into the ordinance. And then sort of the discussion about the number of lots. So these are sort of the three motions that were made at the Land Use Board, all of which failed. The first one was that leave it at eight lots and reset the parent parcel date every 10 years. That failed. Second motion was minor subdivision was five lots or less, and the parent parcel reset date would be every 10 years. That failed. So then I think this last one was sort of maybe a compromise to say, okay, well, we've got some folks that will eight, what if we do five lots and have it reset every seven years? Well, that failed as well. So there was a little bit of consensus maybe around five lots, but there was really no agreement on that reset date. But again, even the consensus around the five lots, there were still enough folks that said, thought it should still be eight that didn't make it out of the land use board. So I wanted to provide you with sort of the discussion around that item and have you guys weigh in on what you might want to direct us to do.

Thank you, Lee. Can you speak to why was the focus in on 10 years and seven years? Do you recall what the logic from the land use board was on that?

I don't. I think it was really the two and three going from 10 to seven, they dropped it to seven because you had enough folks who I think wanted to stay at eight But I think that shorter amount of time for the reset, they thought maybe that would make them comfortable with going down to five. But obviously it didn't work. Yeah, I think that the 10-year date was really, I think they were trying to look at it from a generational standpoint, but also maybe not going quite as far. Because there was some discussion around 15 to 20. But I think they sort of backed it down to 10.

Well, you know, and see, that's what, when I first looked at this, that's what I had in my mind is, you know, if we're talking about a generational type reset, I mean, most people define a generation as 40 years. But, you know, in something like this, you know, I'm thinking somewhere in the neighborhood between 20 and 30 because what you're, what you're talking about a lot of times is family land, right? And so my initial thought was is that you have a grandparent that wants to deed over property to a grandchild. But eventually grandma and grandpa are gonna pass away and then someone's gonna inherit their property. Listen, I don't think there's anybody here that wants to prohibit families from subdividing their properties. That's not the intention here. But we also can't set up a scenario that's going to be abused. And so it's about trying to find the balance. And I'm sure that the Land Use Board was struggling with that. Let me ask you one other thing. This, I believe, came up in our last, the last time that we discussed this on this board. But we sit currently at eight lots, right? So eight lots and less is a minor subdivision. I believe in our previous discussion, the question was asked, well, what does the rest of the state do? And I think that the answer that you gave us was five was the threshold.

So we looked at a lot of comparable counties, and I think I had, I may be wrong on my number, but I think I had about 10 different counties, or maybe 14 that I had pulled. i don't think there was uh in any of the counties that i looked at i don't think you know if i added them all up there was a majority rules kind of number but but there was kind of a common theme of five uh but i will say there were some i think there was one as low as three that may have been stanley county um and then there was one that was as high as 20 lots That may have been, I think that was Lincoln County. So they went up to 20. But yeah, it was, you know, there were a number that were 10. And then, you know, the whole idea of a parent parcel, a couple of them did have a parent parcel kind of, set up and all of them call it a parent parcel and i actually called a few folks because i didn't quite understand uh exactly what their ordinance was was saying so i wanted how i want to know how they interpreted it um and it was kind of like ours they they sort of recognized that that was um i think it's a good idea i think they recognized it too but um some of them didn't have a reset provision at all it was kind of like ours it was tied to a certain date um some of them did have a reset provision and they sort of varied you know but it was generational it was you know the ones i saw were around 20 years um some of them didn't have anything some of them didn't tie it to a parent parcel so so you theoretically could come in and do five lots today and then come in tomorrow and do five lots again and i those are ones that i And I think Brian's probably worked in a community like that. And I actually asked, um, a couple of the planners if they had ever seen that scenario. And yeah, but, but they weren't really, um, I looked at a lot of folks that were like us in terms of, um, they're on the edge of a, a pretty large city. They've got a lot of growth, but also looked at some that were relatively rural. Those are the ones that are relatively rural and weren't experiencing the growth that we are. So it's food for thought. But the common theme, again, I don't think it was a majority, but a common theme was five.

Mr. County Manager.

lead i cannot recall but did that number change previously was our number was something different previously it was um so prior to 2014 that's when this udo was was adopted prior to 2014 ours was it was five but there there was another loophole uh it was five but if you were essentially just not putting in any infrastructure. So let's say you had a really long piece of property along a road. It was unlimited. And I remember when we were going through rewriting the code, I threw out, well, if you had one long enough, could you do 100 lots? Well, yeah, you could. It's a minor subdivision. As long as there was no water, sewer, new roads, any infrastructure like that, you could theoretically have 100 lots if you had long enough If you had the road frontage. So that, I think when we were sort of going through that provision, we thought, well, that's not really a good idea. So we thought, well, that needs to go away. So the eight was really, it was an arbitrary number. It was sort of a compromise. Like, okay, we're going to take this away, but we're going to give you three. And that's really kind of where that came from.

I have a question for Lee as well. I don't often do this. But looking at the definition of parent parcels and the importance of that in our code and the way it's been constructed, it's kind of like the foundation of a lot of things. And so the idea of changing that I guess I just kind of want to do like an emotional check in with you just to see how you feel about that. Does that cause you anxiety? It seems like we're changing the rules of gravity a little bit here.

It did at first, but I think we've sort of internally talked about it enough. We've run through a couple scenarios just in discussions, and there are a couple of different places. It will take some surgery on the ordinance to do it because there's a couple places that reference a lot of record, and I'm throwing out terms that aren't really in the ordinance, but I call it a lot of record. it talks about that but we wouldn't necessarily want to change that particular provision so there would have to be some new definitions added to kind of cover those scenarios but I think we've discussed it enough to I know and my staff knows where those particular areas are that would give me some heartburn so I I'm fine with changing it. I think those will probably need to at some point be updated, so now's as good a time as any. But we would definitely take our time to make sure that we didn't miss something.

This is what I look like when I'm doing a trust fall exercise. I'm doing that with you.

All right. The other thing that I want to point out, Lee didn't go down this rabbit hole, but When you do create a reset, there is still a lot of work that has to be done to be able to have that in perpetuity. We've gotta have maps, we've gotta have that information to refer back to. Right now, that 78 map, it's a paper map. Now, we did try to digitize it. We had scanned them. And scanned it and used it. But, you know, that's a lot more work. Now, with technology, things have gotten a lot easier, a lot easier to do that kind of work. But keep in mind, you're taking a map and you're having to, like, okay, it exists as it does today, 20 years from now. We then have to go back through the exercise of amending that and now identifying what is parent, what is not parent. And that takes more effort out of that. Not saying you can't do it, I'm just saying that's something else you have to take into mind, the work that we have to do to be able to refer back to it and know that is a parent parcel now. Before it was not, now it is.

Lee, how many more years you got until retirement? Not enough.

Commissioner Balken. Just for clarity, if we did do a parent parcel reset, it would be for every property in the county would reset on that same date, correct?

Unincorporated.

Unincorporated. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Yeah, unincorporated. And can be bridged.

OK. Commissioner Woodruff. Sorry. right help me out here lee um so we talk about subdividing subdividing again is there an acreage limit um for how many times a lot can be subdivided in this situation

just basically just be based on the zoning in the area so as long as you could meet that minimum zoning requirement then you could subdivide it as many times as you wanted to you just might trip over into a major at some point but okay yeah there's no there's no limit thank you

Mr. Baucom, you look like you're deep in thought over there.

I am deep in thought, but I don't really want to reveal these thoughts because they're everywhere right now. I'll just keep them to myself.

So my personal opinion is I don't know that eight lots is the correct number any longer. Especially when, so when we were talking about five lots, You said that that's more like the common, more common around the state, I guess, is the best way to put it. My first question is, well, why the heck do we have eight? Why are we sitting at eight lots if the rest of the state's at five? And I appreciate the explanation. So from what you're saying, I mean, this is kind of an arbitrary number. And so I don't think that, in my heart of hearts, I don't think the number's eight. Now, I'm not set on a number, per se. I don't know that the number is seven. It might be six. It might be five. It might be something else. But I think that... I don't think it's eight, personally. And I welcome comments from the board, but... But I'm not, I'm kind of struggling here because from what you're saying, this is kind of all over the map. You're seeing instances where you've got a wide range in the threshold number. I think that we have to be cognizant as a board about residential growth in our county. It's not something that we can ignore. Um, but at the same time, there has to be a balance so that we can protect our, our long term families here. None of us want to hurt the people that want to raise their, their kids and see their grand, their grandkids grow on family property. And I think too, um, you know, if that, that family element helps in some ways to preserve our agriculture. Um, and so. The last thing that I want to do is to hurt that family aspect. I do not agree with the recommendations that we see from the Land Use Board for every 10 years. I do think that it needs to be a higher term if we explore that. But what I'm sensing from the board now is that we may need to have some further discussion on this before we press forward. unless I'm getting the wrong perception here from board members.

Commissioner Baldwin. No, I think you're reading me correctly. Well, this is the big deal. This can really impact a lot of property owners in the county. I want to do it as fairly as possible. The parent parcel reset sounds great, but there's bound to be some negative effects as well. So I want to look at that very carefully. But I do know there are farms out there now that still have considerable acreage that if a grandparent wants to give a grandchild a lot, all of a sudden they're into the major subdivision category. So I just... i want to be very responsible and and diligent and continue to move this conversation but i do think the conversation may need to go forward a little bit more before we bring just to be responsible yeah and you know i think that our county manager brought up a good point um if we're if we're transcribing paper maps

that could be a tall task for our staff. Is there a way to maybe get our arms wrapped around how much this would entail from staff so that we can kind of make a better decision?

So we wouldn't use paper maps. We would just capture the GIS data the day that that amendment became effective. But knowing that that may not be, it's not going to be 100% correct. Because there could have been a plat or something filed that day. But that's true now. And if we do occasionally have people that come in that will say, well, this is the parent parcel and this was 1978. And it's amazing how, because my memory is not that good. It's amazing how good people's memory is. And they'll say, well, no, on January 2nd of 1978, my grandmother split this property and they'll bring us the deed. And we recognize that because it happened before February 14th. And those things do happen. So But that's what we would do. We would capture the GIS data on the day that it became effective, which is not very difficult. We've already had those conversations with GIS. It's not difficult to do. And then we could have scenarios that we would have to work with people on because maybe there was something that happened that wasn't mapped yet. But I don't think that would be a heavy lift. What you may want to see, because again, when you reset this date, a lot that was subdivided five years ago all of a sudden becomes apparent parcel. So if you had you know, eight lots that came out of a parent tract, then now all those eight lots are now parent parcels and can be divided again. So I think that's something that you, some information you may wanna see. We could probably provide you with a, I mean, it would be a snapshot in time of a number of lots that exist in the unincorporated portion of the county. to give you an idea of what we're talking about.

What's the pleasure of the board with that? Is that something we would want to see? I mean, we could potentially be talking about the creation of a lot of lots. I think that may be helpful for us to kind of get an idea about if we were to implement a parent parcel renewal date, what's the impact? So if staff can bring us back information regarding that at a later time, then I think that that would be appropriate. We can do that.

Okay.

Do we need a motion on that, Mr. Kaye? I don't think so. We could just do it. Okay. All right. So final item here is the idea of a family subdivision. Some communities have an exemption in their development regulations for family subdivisions. And they typically have some requirements that revolve around sort of these four kind of themes here. There's usually a lineal descendant requirement, usually a parent to a child or a grandparent to a grandchild. Some of them could be vice versa, so it could be going the other direction. um usually there's a maximum number that you can do per year um or a maximum per lot of record or maximum number over a certain number of years that that was kind of and honestly there weren't that many so when i looked at at sort of comparable counties uh you know everybody had rules around major and minor subdivisions so i didn't have any issues finding things there i think Of the ones I looked at, I found four that had something to do with family subdivisions. So that one was kind of all over the place. Most of them have some kind of road frontage or an easement access requirement. So most of them were easement access. You didn't have to have road frontage. It could be back on the dirt road. you know somewhere and then there was some ownership requirements so it had to be owned by a family member and there's some time limits on that ownership so common themes seem to be three years you know so if I gave my son a piece of property he had to be my son and he had to own it for three years I did get into a little bit of, I called a couple of them just to see, well, how do you handle these? How do you regulate that? And that's difficult. It is extremely difficult to regulate this. That is a downside. most of them as part of the application process had an affidavit so somebody just filled out an affidavit and said yep that that's my kid or that's my grandkid and that was it like we're not going to do a blood test that the county planning department to prove that that's your that's your kid um and then the you know the the The number of years you have to own it, that's just in there for show, to be honest with you. It's impossible to regulate. That would be a heavy lift. If you were proactive about it, that would mean looking at deeds that came in every day of property transfers. You can't do that. The other way to do it is to wait for a neighbor to call and say, and that's gonna be a family member that's mad because somebody got a divorce. I've seen it happen. I worked in a community that had these rules. And after that property's transferred, I know Jason could probably better answer the discussion. Once that property transfers, trying to undo that through a zoning action I imagine is really hard to do. So again, the regulatory side of this is pretty difficult to enforce. The other thing is, and I think why a lot of communities don't really have this, it's not specifically mentioned in the North Carolina subdivision statutes. And then kind of the last thing, sort of on the negative points of it were, it still creates a lot. So it's still creating a lot. It's a family, but it's still creating a lot. There's somebody that's going to build a house on that lot. There's going to be people living on that lot. So it's still creating a need for services. So you're not getting around that issue from the county standpoint. But I'll get back to the presentation. And what the Land Use Board recommended. So they recommended... Lineal transfers up and down two generations. I think everybody kind of understands what that means. They didn't want a maximum number of family subdivision lots. They didn't want a cap. No public road frontage. Each lot would have to have at least a 20-foot access easement. The minimum lot size would be based on the underlying zoning district. So the reason they put that in there, some of the counties that we saw had a, regardless of zoning district, it had to be one acre. So they said, no, that's silly. Whatever the underlying zoning is, it's fine. have it exempt, be exempt from all the requirements of the major subdivision regulations. I think if you did this, it would sort of automatically be exempt because you're treating this as an exemption, but they wanted that spelled out specifically. And then a three-year ownership requirement. So that was the Land Use Board's recommendation.

Questions or comments for Lee?

Mr. Bulkin. Honestly, that just looks like it's going to be very muddy. You know, it won't be clean. It'll be hard to enforce, hard to regulate. You know, first cousin, three times removed. You know, I don't know how you truly manage this. I pray it may be a management nightmare. And that's just my thoughts. Some of the stuff in here sounds great, you know, but I just think the devil's definitely in the details on this one, just my opinion.

I tend to agree with Commissioner Baucom. And, you know, on that note, I mean, certain Baucoms in the county got a lot of cousins, you know. Well, that's true. Helms, too. But, yeah, I mean, I look at this and, you know, I think, well, the county's not going to have, like, DNA testing, you know, to your point earlier. And this is... it's gonna be practically impossible to enforce. And I think that, you know, to Commissioner Baucom's point, I think a lot of this is, it sounds really good for families, but this is an enforcement nightmare. And it could result in a heavy lift for our staff and trying to enforce, even though the enforcement's not that much, but I mean, how do you, How do you sit there and say, well, how do you determine that people are related? I think that this is too much of an ask at this point. Any other comments? No?

So then we will start moving the first one along through that minor text amendment process. I got minor subdivisions on the brain. Through that text amendment process, the second one will bring back some more research and information. I'll probably share that with the Land Use Board at their meetings. I believe I'm going to talk to the Agricultural Advisory Board as well. So I'm going to probably bring it up to them, get some feedback from those boards as well. Perfect. And we're also still talking about subdivisions and minor subdivisions. These are just the first kind of three things that we came to some semblance of conclusions on. So there will be future updates that may have some different items in it.

I have no doubt that we're going to be hearing from you again soon, Lee. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Okay, so home stretch here. So Lee, I think, is done for the evening. But the next item on our agenda is item 26-463, and that's appointments to boards and committees. There are currently two boards with vacancies for consideration this evening. These vacancies have been advertised in accordance with the applicable law. The first, the Central Line of Workforce Development Board has one vacancy for an unexpired term. as the higher education representative. I'll now entertain a motion for a nomination for this position.

Chairman Helms, I'd like to make a motion that we appoint Dr. Mary Jordan to the Central Workforce Development Board.

Okay.

So we have a motion. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye.

Aye.

Okay. The second board is the Home and Community Block Grant Advisory Committee, which has one vacancy for an unexpired term for a community representative position. I will now entertain a motion for a nomination for that position.

Chairman Helms, I'd like to make a motion that we appoint James Wild as the Home and Communication Care Block Grant Advisory Committee.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. So we've got a motion. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All right. The end of the meeting here, so now I'll... No, that was on consent. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Yep, that was on consent. No problem. All right, so I will now recognize our county manager for his comments.

I have no comments. Thank you very much.

Okay. All right, Commissioner Wedger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to say thank you, a special thank you to Deputy Frazier and Deputy Garcia. Union County deputies run toward danger every day without hesitation, and many times we never hear about it. I'm grateful for them, and I'm grateful for the leadership that allow them to do their jobs. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Wedger.

Commissioner Baucom.

All right. Yes. First of all, leaving to start a show, I want to thank him and his staff for all they've done for us and all the staff. Also, congratulations to the two deputies. Truly heroic action on their part. And I know, you know, like this, extend a gratitude, a spirit of gratitude to everybody involved with emergency services. I've been in situations before where me not being trained and I had to call that 911 number, but there's no better sound in the world than to hear that siren coming your way. And so just all those folks that help keep us safe, truly appreciate them. And, Mr. Chair, that's all I've got.

Thank you, Commissioner Baucom. Vice Chair Helms.

I'm gonna echo the two commissioners already, our two deputies that jumped into action to save one of our citizens is truly heroic and we owe them a debt of gratitude. I'd like to also recognize our IT department for becoming fourth in the nation. pretty impressive so go it to be as a small large community to have that distinction is quite impressive to do what they do on the budget that they have and thanks to everyone that came out and spoke we appreciate y'all coming out thank you

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. I, too, want to thank Lee for all of his extra hours this evening. And thank you for your efforts there, not only in dealing with us with these minor subdivisions and other land use items that we've got, but also dealing with Land Use Board. You are front and center there, and you're answering questions and bringing topics, and so I really appreciate your efforts. I do want to thank our speakers tonight. It's always good for this board to hear from the public, and I also want to thank everybody that was in attendance tonight as well. I do want to take a few minutes here, and I want to respond to some of the comments and the characterization surrounding the August 4th Board of Education meeting, specifically regarding the proposed interlocal agreement First thing I want to say is that I want to be clear that there's never been a question about whether teachers and teachers assistants deserve a supplement increase, at least from this board. They absolutely do. And if we want to hire and retain good teachers, we need to consistently look at teacher supplements. And in fact, this board, has demonstrated that commitment by putting additional local dollars on the table, specifically for teachers and also teacher assistant supplement increases. And we did that last year too. The disagreement I think that we are dealing with is really about accountability for Union County taxpayer dollars. The county asked for something very simple in this interlocal agreement. and we asked that this agreement be put in writing, and the terms were simple. The terms were that the money needs to go to the teachers and the TAs, and it has to be distributed ASAP, and it can't be used for other items or unfunded mandates from the state. The total length of that interlocal agreement was less than five full pages, less than five. And despite what some Board of Education members may say, the interlocal agreement was not an attack on the school board and it wasn't an attempt to control the school system. It's also not an attempt to control the superintendent and it's certainly not a dictatorship. Yet during the August 4th meeting, Board of Education members described the agreement as manufactured mistrust even characterized this board as a dictatorship it was also alleged that this board was guilty of corruption think about that a dictatorship and corruption all because the county asked for a written agreement concerning millions of taxpayer dollars if that's the standard that we're going to use then apparently accountability has become tyranny and apparently transfer transparency has become an insult i don't think the taxpayers of union county see it that way though we were asking for accountability for taxpayer money and we asked for it in a line item budget too and that request has been ignored how is that corrupt i want to be clear about this That is our job as commissioners. The county commissioners have a responsibility that cannot be ignored. We are stewards of the taxpayers' money and when we allocate millions of dollars for a specific purpose, we have an obligation to the taxpayers who provided that money to make sure that there is clarity about where it goes. When you spend public money, there is no such thing as private finances. This board stands united on transparency and clarity because it matters. We have heard the term certified staff being thrown around a lot lately. We heard it last budget cycle too. And we also heard that paying our teachers and that teacher supplement was our number one priority. Yet the question is who does certified staff include? We've asked that question. But more importantly, who does it exclude? Are all teachers certified staff? Are all TAs certified staff? And I think that we're gonna find that the answer is no, they aren't. And unfortunately, we have a very recent example of why that clarity that I just mentioned matters. You see, last year, the county and UCPS had a significant disagreement, and I think everybody's aware of that disagreement. over what was meant by that term certified staff, and the county, meaning this board, believed that it was providing an additional supplement for our classroom teachers. UCPS interpreted that differently to include other certified employees, and our TAs didn't get anything, and this isn't the only example. And you can call that or the proposed interlocal agreement manufactured mistrust all you want. And you can even yell. They have the money. But it doesn't change the fundamental question. Why is it unreasonable to have a written agreement when millions of taxpayer dollars are involved? Is it trust? Or is it pride? A written agreement isn't the opposite of trust. That is how governments create clarity. It's how we make sure that everyone understands what was agreed upon and that we're all on the same page. It's how we prevent disagreements later about the money and what it was intended to accomplish. they're commonly done by the way tonight we passed two of them on our consent agenda alone the experience last year demonstrated something very important and that is when millions of dollars are involved good intentions and verbal assurances are not enough that is why the county asked for that interlocal agreement this year and here's one of the most important parts supporting teachers and demanding accountability are not mutually exclusive We can and we should do both. The Board of Education ultimately rejected the interlocal agreement at their August 4th meeting and then approved an alternate plan that moved forward with compensation increases in the way of supplement increases for our teachers. And I'm glad that our teachers are gonna receive some supplement increases this year, but it still leaves the question, why couldn't we have both? Why? Why does UCPS look at cutting traffic directors to save, I don't know, $200,000 and leave millions on the table for teachers and TAs if that's truly your number one goal? If paying teachers is your number one goal, why couldn't teachers and teacher's assistants receive supplement increases and the county school board and most importantly the taxpayer have a clear written agreement regarding taxpayer dollars being used to fund them that's not unreasonable that's responsible government so if asking for accountability is called manufactured mistrust i'll respectfully disagree if wanting to receive the receipts is called corruption i'll respectfully disagree And if a written agreement is called a dictatorship, I'll respectfully disagree with that too. Because accountability isn't tyranny. It's how government that is truly for the people is operated. And asking questions about taxpayer money doesn't mean that you don't support teachers or our public education system. We can support our teachers, and we can support our schools, and we can still be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we don't have to choose between the two. Ultimately, this discussion, whether that's interlocal agreement or anything else, this isn't about Brian Helms or Chairman Benjamin. This isn't about our members. of our respective boards and it certainly isn't about the members of this board who previously served on the Board of Education. These members are assets to our board and I'm glad to serve with them. It's not about any individual commissioner or school board member. What this is about is about doing the right thing for Union County as a whole and sometimes doing the right thing isn't easy I'll leave you with this statement. I will never apologize for asking government to be transparent and accountable to the people who pay the bill. That concludes my comments tonight. Again, thank you to all of our staff members. Thank you to our board. I appreciate all of your efforts. With that, I'll make a motion to adjourn. All those in favor of the motion, say aye.