Though a property plan presented to the Orange County Board of Commissioners focuses on potential land acquisition projects, commissioners said the county should concentrate on making the property it already owns more accessible.
The Lands Legacy Action Plan, which was adopted 10 years ago, is put to use every two fiscal years to create a framework of what lands to acquire in the future.
“It’s been very successful,” said David Stancil, department director of the Orange County Department of Environment, Agriculture, Parks and Recreation, in the meeting. “We’ve accomplished a lot of things through Lands Legacy that have achieved quite a bit for land owners.”
The draft action plan for the next two years has identified seven project areas that land conservation officials seek to either establish or improve, including a seven-mile creek preserve west of Hillsborough and the Bolin Creek corridor.
Stancil said commissioners needed to move forward with deciding possible uses for the land before a final plan could be presented.
“We certainly recognize that times have been challenging,” Stancil said. “But some of these projects have been in the works for a while — low hanging fruit, if you will. We have to prioritize within our priorities.”
Alternatively, county commissioners suggested that concentration should be on developing the properties the county has in place already.
“It doesn’t do us much good to get property and just hold it and not make it accessible to citizens of the county,” commissioner Steve Yuhasz said at the meeting. “What I don’t want to see is, at the end of a 20-year plan, completing the projects we started this year.”
Board chairwoman Valerie Foushee said the county has acquired a lot of land but has not made it accessible to the public.
