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DRAFT
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<br />decided, that is irrelevant to what you’re deciding here tonight. You have a very specific 1
<br />interpretation of the law and that is the statute surrounding agro-tourism and it’s relation to farm, 2
<br />bona fide farm, use and operations. But that timing, even if it was a factor is again not something 3
<br />that defeats this because even if they hadn’t done any of those things prior to the Special Use 4
<br />Permit there is no law, there is no authority, there’s no legal authority that says she can’t just 5
<br />change. And after that whole thing, decided ok, well then, the way I can do this is through agro-6
<br />tourism, through bona-fide farm. There is nothing that stops that. That’s not what the record shows 7
<br />at all. The record specifically shows that this was all part of what her vision was and what the plan 8
<br />was, both her and her husband, Kara and Chris Brewer. But, for arguments sake, it wouldn’t even 9
<br />matter if that was the case. There is no authority that says they can’t do that. Where they put in 10
<br />their building permits, how that changed, and again you heard Mr. Harvey’s testimony that they 11
<br />rejected her January permit. They sent that back and asked for her to do it over again. That was 12
<br />not her changing it or that wasn’t her own actions in trying to gain the system. That’s absolutely not 13
<br />what’s going on here. The Brewer’s have started a bona fide farm. That is incontrovertible. The 14
<br />evidence of what of what their operations are as introduced at the last hearing and supplemented 15
<br />tonight show that they have substantial investments already in agricultural activities from the 16
<br />$50,000 that they’d invested in chestnut operations, the hundreds of trees that they’re putting into 17
<br />the ground, both in Caswell County and on this site combined, and the extensive flower, cut 18
<br />flowerbeds that are being installed, bees that are being cultivated on the property, the 19
<br />incorporation. So this kind of leads to our second fallacy that Ms. Brown has constructed around 20
<br />this what I like to think of is the straw barn argument in this case, is that she’s reduced this down to 21
<br />the four corners of this structure and what is the use of the barn. But again, there is no legal 22
<br />authority for narrowing the analysis to those four corners of that structure. But even if that were the 23
<br />case there is. It could be zero percent of that barn is being used for farm activities, because while 24
<br />she constantly hit on the word incidental to she omitted in most cases the word related. It’s related 25
<br />or incidental to. And as you can see under tab 2 David Owen’s book, land use law in North 26
<br />Carolina, he goes into, on page 182, rules of interpretation. This is under tab 2. And on page 183, 27
<br />at the top, on the second column, first sentence is, “it’s all terms within a provision and all 28
<br />provisions within an ordinance must be considered and should be considered as a whole”. You 29
<br />can’t read just incidental and ignore related. Related is a very broad term. She also referred to the 30
<br />intent. And Mr. Owen’s addresses intent, he’s got a whole section on intent, and I would draw your 31
<br />attention to those from Professor Richard Ducker, who wrote an article on this topic. It’s dated 32
<br />2011. 33
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<br />James Bryan: That’s ok. Which one is it? I’ve got that one. 35
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<br />Andy Petesch: And I will point out he repeatedly indicates throughout this article the expanding 37
<br />nature of the farm exemption in a statute so it’s increasingly, with almost every new amendment 38
<br />draft that’s adopted to this new provision that’s adopted it’s an expansion of the exemption and not 39
<br />a contraction. Again, you can see the intent of this is to broaden what’s included within it and not 40
<br />contract and not look more restrictively at it. So again, we don’t have a definition of non-farm use. 41
<br />We do have definitions of bona fide farm purposes. Those are again, and this was referred to by 42
<br />Ms. Brown and I believe this was County Exhibit number 3 earlier tonight, the grant of power 43
<br />153a340, 106581.1, and 99e-30. I would point out Ms. Brown did note this, although she had 44
<br />indicated that it was not incorporated, not that one, the definition agriculture defined was not 45
<br />directly implicated in section 153a340 in here. You’re actually directed by the statute the grant of 46
<br />power to look at 106581.1, this is in tab one, as defined in that section. And that goes on to include 47
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