As part of a Strategic Growth Plan, officials from Orange County and Hillsborough have jointly created potential maps that would define the town's future annexation areas and create a rural buffer around Hillsborough where water and sewer would not be extended.

County resident Robert Nichols reminded the Town Board on Monday that the rural residents furnish the county with water by letting water run off into streams and even reservoirs such as Lake Orange. It would be unfair to say that those residents can never get water and sewer because they are in the rural buffer, he said.

"Sooner or later -- hopefully later -- there are going to be a lot of people in northern Orange County who are going to need water and sewer," Nichols said.

Ben Lloyd, a large county landowner, said there had not been enough notice about the plan.

"This buffer area is being proposed, and nobody I know of in the entire buffer area is aware of any of this," Lloyd said.

Planning Director Margaret Hauth emphasized that the plan is not a land use plan.

"It is not actually a document that changes the regulations on anybody's property," Hauth said. "It sets out a framework to go to the next step."

The Town Board has not yet held a vote to approve the draft plan. The Orange County commissioners will discuss the Strategic Growth Plan tonight.