AG 2009 08 17 - Laserfiche WebLink

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June 2009 - Planning & Zoning Draft Meeting Minutes surrounding the pond. He has worked with the county attorney since the Board approved this plan a while back, and drafted up some language for an easement and passed it onto Mr. Scribner and as you have already heard, he has been reluctant to record that given the nature of the project right now and the fact that he does not own it. We do have an easement that is ready to go at whatever time that might be appropriate. The Chair asked if he would go forth with the easement now that the gas easement goes through what was going to be the conservation easement. He asked how that impacts Mr. Testermans' desire for the easement. Mr. Testerman said he is a County employee and receives a County salary and benefits, but he serves as well as the county, the Cabarrus County Soil and Water Conservation District Board. It is a board just like the Board of Commissioners or the Board of Education; they are elected officials. They would have to approve the conservation easement that was discussed back when the plan was approved. Mr. Griffin said as he understood the question, what is the rub between the gas line and easement; because they have the power of eminent domain on their side. Mr. Testerman said the easement would have to be approved by the Conservation District Board. They are on record right now of opposing the pipeline because of environmental impacts. We have a case in point here where it is running through a screen buffer. He is basically reporting the stance the Board has taken; there has been no public form for them to express their views; it is on record, they took motion in a meeting a while back. The Chair is asking about the position on the conservation easement now that the gas easement runs through it. Mr. Testerman cannot speak for his board and he does not know if they would be interested in an easement that had a pipeline running through it or not. We would have to look at it, but it seems to largely defeat the purpose because it has gone through and impacted the buffer. One of the issues he is dealing with right now is on another property that we actually own, that has a permitted easement on it where WSACC waterway goes through and has a kudzu problem and the same problem behind the jail where we have an easement on part of the county jail property. He said if you go through and open that up and bring through equipment that has seeds and stuff on it, and then open it up to sunlight for the in perpetuity; he thinks it is going to be very hard to maintain that buffer. We are having lots of issues. He said heating up the water is part of the reason for a buffer, you are loosing some of your filtering capacity because you are substituting trees for the grass that have growing on the easement, but then you open it up to kudzu. He thinks that would be an issue for the homeowners in there as well; certainly the homeowners off of Union Street are really eager to work with us to try to get rid of the kudzu that is on the jail easement there. It opens up a lot of headaches for us and he is not sure we are prepared to get into for what benefits that might remain in terms of water quality and buffering. Mr. Russell Clough, 1004 Archibald Road, addressed the Board. His main concern is all the development that is going to take place beside his property. He said number one is traffic flow; everybody already uses Archibald Road as a short cut to Zion Church Road to Highway 601. It Attachment number 9 Page 78 of 315 E-1