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21 <br />Statement of Justification Combs Rezoning . <br />One of the permissible grounds for a change in the zoning atlas of <br />Orange County is to correct an error in the zoning ordinance. The <br />property requested for rezoning has been used for the storage of <br />automobiles since before the adoption of zoning for Bingham Township, <br />and thus should have been zoned EC -5 to allow the continuation of <br />preexisting land use. This rezoning is being requested in part at the <br />suggestion of the Orange County Board of Adjustment. <br />According to the Orange County Planning Staff, zoning became <br />effective for Bingham Township on September 2, 1981. The property was <br />at that time an uninhabited tract of land. It had been purchased as <br />part of a six acre parcel known as Orange County Tax Map 37B, Lot bA, by <br />J. B. Martin and wife Doris Helen Martin on May 31, 1979. Mr. Martin <br />was in the automobile business and bought this land as a salvage yard to <br />keep old cars. He is now deceased, but his son Kenneth Martin has <br />stated that the family checked with Orange County before the land was <br />purchased and was told that no zoning or other regulations would prevent <br />the property from being used for this purpose. As soon as the property <br />was purchased, the Martins started to place cars upon it for storage. <br />According to testimony of numerous persons, cars have been stored on the <br />property continuously from the Spring of 1979 until the present time. <br />At the time the property was zoned in 1981, it appears that Orange <br />County was not aware of the use of the property. The property has <br />access off of Ferguson Road, and the cars were stored towards the rear <br />of the property, so that a person driving past the property on Ferguson <br />Road would not see the stared cars. It would have been difficult to <br />know the use of all the parcels of land in an area as large as Bingham <br />Township. <br />On August 29, 1983, the property was purchased from the Martins by <br />the present owners, Donald Wayne Combs and wife Brenda Carol Combs. It <br />was bought for the purpose of storing cars, and the Combs agreed to let <br />the Martins continue to store cars on it. Mr. Combs, at that time, <br />owned and operated West Franklin Street Gulf in Chapel Hill. Cars could <br />not be stored at the downtown location, and Mr. Combs stored cars on the <br />property. In 1985, Mr. & Mrs. Combs built an framed ranch style house <br />