Board polishes subdivision ordinance

By Gracie Hart
Review Staff Writer
Published: September 25, 2008

The Orange County Board of Supervisors held a work session Tuesday night to discuss changes to the proposed subdivision ordinance and to set a date for an upcoming public hearing. 
The proposed changes to the ordinance deal mostly with section 54-27 of the ordinance.  This is the section devoted to divisions of land in the agricultural zoning district.
Changes were made to the section in order to make it more easily understood.  Distinctions are made more clearly between a phased division and a simultaneous division. 
A phased division, will be the possible division of a lot which was divided initially from the parent tract, into a further division, not less than 50 acres, once every four years as counted from the date of county approval of the initial division.  If the original tract of land was simultaneously divided into four lots during the four years prior to the effective date of the new ordinance, those four lots can not be divided until four years from the date of approval on them or until one year has elapsed from the effective date of the ordinance.  Whichever situation is later would be the regulating one.
A simultaneous division will be one in which parcels of land are simultaneously divided into an unlimited number of tracts 50-acres in size or larger.  However, these lots can not be further divided.
Also, the new wording clearly shows that family subdivisions, court-ordered subdivisions, part-and-parcel subdivisions, and the division of property for boundary line adjustment purposes are exempt from the section.
Board members brought up the question of how the landowner knows which piece of land is the “parent” and which is the “child” as worded in the ordinance.  To some it would seem that the parent would be the original tract of land and the child would be the part that was divided from the original tract, this may not always be the case. 
According to land-use attorney Sharon Pendak who has been working on the ordinance, it is up to the landowner to decide which is which.
According to director of strategic planning Debbie Kendall, the landowner will get some help with deciding this.  Their initial contact in the process would be a surveyor who would explain it to them and then they would receive further advice from the orange county planning and zoning office.
“We can tell them what the ramifications of each choice would be,” said Kendall.
Worried about there being any lack of clarification in the matter, the supervisors discussed holding public information meetings about the matter if needed.
“When you divide your land, you are not thinking that you have to name them and its very important how you name them,” said chairman Mark Johnson.  “This is a major change.  The county owes [it to citizens] to be fair with people and make sure they know what’s going on.”
Also discussed were the surveys, especially section 54.32.
The board determined that 54.32, which deals with a house location survey, should be included in the zoning ordinance and not in the subdivision ordinance.  This is because the section does not deal with subdividing but rather more with looking at where homeowners have put their houses within a plot of land.
After discussing the proposed changes, the board set a new date and time for a public meeting to receive comment on the ordinance, a meeting that was originally scheduled for Sept. 23.  In accordance with advertising requirements, the new meeting will be held Oct. 28 at Prospect Heights Middle School.