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BOCC Retreat

Orange County · Board of County Commissioners
Monday, September 14, 2026

Retreat or planning session Comprehensive planWater and sewerBonds and debtContracts and procurementFarmland and open spaceHousing and affordabilityIntergovernmental agreementsSubdivision and site plans

Agenda document Watch

What's on this agenda

Orange County's commissioners spend the morning of 14 September on the draft Land Use Plan 2050, deciding what must change before it goes out for a third and final round of public comment. Staff pose questions under five headings: the plan's vision themes, housing, rural conservation neighborhoods with community septic systems, rural activity nodes, and renegotiating the water and sewer boundary agreements with the towns.

Staff recommend dropping conservation neighborhoods from the future land use map and offering them countywide as a subdivision option, and merging three kinds of rural commercial node into one. They warn that downzoning farmland to one home per ten acres would raise land and home prices. No vote is scheduled and there is no public comment period. A revised draft is due at a November business meeting, and adoption is expected in late 2027.

Summarized from the published agenda. Read the agenda itself before acting on it.

Speaking at this meeting

Orange County's own rules for public comment — check them before you rely on anything here.

Agenda items (5)

Discussion item · 3Presentation · 1Procedural · 1
  1. Introduction (Attachment B)
    Presentation Comprehensive plan
  2. Discussion Items: Vision Themes Goals; Housing & Attainability; Rural Conservation Neighborhoods and Water/Wastewater to Serve (Attachment D)
    Discussion item Bonds and debtComprehensive planFarmland and open spaceHousing and affordabilitySubdivision and site plansWater and sewer
    Staff ask whether to reword the plan's themes, whether to protect farmland by downzoning or by separating farm subdivisions from conservation neighborhoods, and how to address housing where utilities will not reach for 25 years. They recommend making conservation neighborhoods a countywide subdivision option, with community septic systems held to performance standards and bonds.
  3. Break
    Procedural
  4. Discussion Items Continued: Rural Activity Nodes; Interlocal Agreements/Collaboration (Attachment D)
    Discussion item Comprehensive planContracts and procurementIntergovernmental agreementsWater and sewer
    Staff recommend merging the rural commercial, neighborhood and industrial nodes into one category decided by conditional zoning, and ask whether to open talks with the towns on the water and sewer boundary agreement and the Rural Buffer.
  5. Next Steps
    Discussion item Comprehensive plan
    Staff send a revised list of edits, and the revised draft goes to a November business meeting for release to public comment in winter 2026-27.

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