Orange County’s Unified Development Ordinance, which is intended to regulate new businesses, needs to be reassessed to be more welcoming.
County commissioners should re-examine the contents of the ordinance to streamline the development process, remove unnecessary regulations and make the ordinance a more reasonable length.
The ordinance’s daunting size — 616 pages — creates problems for businesses that are looking to get their start in Chapel Hill.
Such a large document is cumbersome for businesses and can act as a deterrent, leading business owners to choose to develop in neighboring counties instead.
Durham County’s ordinance is about 460 pages, and Randolph County’s ordinance is only 247 pages.
A moderate amount of regulation is necessary. That being said, condensing Orange County’s current ordinance to a more manageable size would encourage economic development around Chapel Hill and throughout the county.
Many candidates for county commissioner have expressed concern about the unnecessary length of the ordinance and the board’s lack of knowledge about its contents when it was adopted in April 2011.
If Orange County wants to see development similar to that of The Streets at Southpoint in Durham County and Tanger Outlets in Alamance County, commissioners must reformat the development ordinance in a way that can be easily approached.
Orange County could benefit from streamlining the ordinance. Condensing this lengthy document would help developers and encourage them to open businesses in Chapel Hill.
