https://jocoreport.com/county-considers-land-use-changes-to-control-growth/ Better late than never, I suppose. The acknowledgement that infrastructure hasn't and won't keep up is the best part of this, I think. That and the impact fees.
There are no impact fees. The NC General Assembly passed a law a few years ago removing municipality's ability to charge them. The $800 is a fee in lieu of providing open space in subdivisions. I believe the fee is used for county recreation purposes, not infrastructure.
...which is about as close to an impact fee as you can get (without actually calling it an 'impact fee'). Personally, I would prefer they mandate the open space because what good is the $800 for county recreation when they don't even have a parks and rec department?
You have a 100 acre subdivision. 15 acres of it have to be open space if you do not provide amenities, 10 acres if you do. If you look at the 100 acres like a big rectangle, usually there are creeks or wetlands in the back. To save costs the developers build as close to the front as they can. The lots are smaller, less roads and whatnot. The back 15 acres have to be high and dry land and cant be contained in wetlands or creek riparian buffers. So that back land is never touched and even if the lots do go all the way to the back, there is a small 15' access easement thats usually between 2 lots that run back to the open space. That open space is normally dense woods and alot of time the topo of the area make walking on it very hard. So the developers get credit for open space in land they could not develop anyway. The open space is never improved with trails and such, so its just normal dense woods that are unusable. The $800 per lot is a better deal.
