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DRAFT 33 want you to understand that that is where this is located. It is part of the zoning power. Section a is 1 the grant of power and section b1 begins the process of talking about the farm exemption. This 2 particular section of chaptern153a is called “Part 3 Zoning”. Now, why on earth did I just tell you 3 something as boring as that? Well, here’s why. If you look at the statute that you have before you 4 and the statute that Mr. Harvey was looking at, what the statute says about farms is that 5 regulations; what kind of regulations? Regulations may effect property used for bona fide farm. 6 Used for a bona fide farm. Only for the purposes set out in paragraph three. But, this subdivision 7 does not limit regulation under this part with respect to the use of farm property for non-farm 8 purposes. 9 10 Barry Katz: Where does it say? Oh there it is. 11 12 LeAnn Brown: Do you have the copy there in front of you? Can you see it? 13 14 Barry Katz: Yeah. I got it. 15 16 LeAnn Brown: So what that means in a more common way of speaking is that the legislature does 17 not intend the farm exemption that it is telling you about here to apply to the zoning regulations, this 18 part, all zoning in the Counties in the State of North Carolina, to the extent that someone is making 19 a non farm use of farm property. In other words, under this statutory structure delightfully written as 20 it may be, what the statute means is that there is a multipart test. First question; is the property 21 farm property at all? Is it a bona fide farm? An the legislature spends a great deal of that statute 22 telling us what things a County can look at or must look at to decide whether it’s farm property at 23 all. If it’s not farm property at all we don’t have the rest of this conversation. So we go through and 24 look at whether it’s farm property. And the test is very simple. The legislatures made the test pretty 25 easy. If you’ve got a farm number then you get to walk down the path of being a farm property. If 26 you’ve got a forestry plan, even if it’s on top of your septic system, you get to be considered a farm 27 property. And so, we have not contended that Ms. Brewer doesn’t have either of those things and 28 some other things that fit those statutory tests. We, we’re not… they then went out and bought a 29 farm in another County and had some chestnuts there and I’m not contending that whatever they 30 did there couldn’t apply back to determine whether this is farm property. So we are not here to take 31 issue with whether the dirt is farm property. It’s got all the requisites to be farm property. That does 32 not mean that this property is exempt from the zoning ordinance of Orange County in a vacuum. 33 What that means is that you get to look at whether the exemption applies. And what happened in 34 this case originally is that Michael Harvey did exactly that. He looked at the issue of whether this 35 property could be considered farm property and then he looked at the use that was proposed and 36 he looked at the paperwork that had been provided to him and he said, you know, this is a non 37 farm use. And because this is a non-farm use this individual needs a Special Use Permit in order to 38 have this use on this property that might otherwise be farm property. Mr. Harvey was absolutely 39 right. Mr. Harvey’s decision that this particular use is a non-farm use and required a Special Use 40 Permit is absolutely correct. And the logic of that decision then follows through with the decision 41 that you made as a Board. Because you looked at this use and you looked at the impact of this 42 use. Look at that picture again. Look at that asphalt farm, with that gigantic barn sitting on it. You 43 look at that picture and you know that this particular use is not related to farming at all. It may be on 44 farm property, but it is not related to farming at all. It is a wedding venue. It was advertised as a 45 wedding venue, you analyzed it as a wedding venue, and you were given an honest application 46 saying, here’s my wedding venue, can I do this? And you decided that based upon the enormous 47