Orange County NC Website
DRAFT <br /> 44 <br />venue is incidental. And I understand that it includes the term related. So I’m not inclined to support 1 <br />it’s, the present plan that’s been approved. And I don’t know what our motion should be but I still 2 <br />have lots of questions about this. 3 <br /> 4 <br />Matt Hughes: Well I understand some peoples belief, primarily based on the plan regarding parking 5 <br />and planning for, you know, significant number of people on this property, and the cost. And I 6 <br />believe that if they, if the Brewers’ had decided to build a barn that conceivably the cost to build a 7 <br />barn, rather than move a barn, would still be much more than the cost to plant the flowers, plant the 8 <br />chestnuts, that expense would still be greater that the cost to build a new barn would still be 9 <br />greater than than the planting. But I can also see why they would plan for a facility that even if you 10 <br />wanted, say was incidental to their, that the event space was incidental to the flower business, we 11 <br />don’t build highways for traffic at 2am, right? We don’t build a four-lane highway because it’s not 12 <br />going to get, based on a usage at 2am where you’re going to have very few, if any, cars. What I 13 <br />think they were doing was planning for the times where they would have a lot of volume, and I think 14 <br />that’s perfectly understandable. What, what I do believe is that when we did this order back in 15 <br />October having the line of acknowledgment that this issue in one way shape or form was probably 16 <br />going to come back to us. It was just a matter of if and when, and here we are in March about six 17 <br />months, five six months later, and it’s before us again. As I believed then as I do now, I do believe 18 <br />that having this event space is part of a farming operation. And I can see folks in the audience 19 <br />disagree with me, but I believe that what the Statute says and I believe what the North Carolina 20 <br />Department of Agriculture has promoted as agro-tourism is under those definitions a farm use, and 21 <br />until the courts, as Ms. Brown said earlier, until they weigh in and are very specific or the General 22 <br />Assembly clears up their language then I believe this is a perfectly acceptable farm use. And I 23 <br />understand why people would not support this in this community. It’s not a large community; it’s a 24 <br />community that if you visit it you have to purposefully go there. I wound up in the community by 25 <br />accident driving through rural Orange County, I took a wrong turn thinking I remembered the roads 26 <br />a little bit better than I did, and so this this could be a big disturbance, or would be a big 27 <br />disturbance, but I believe that the issue before us is whether or not I think staff erred in making its 28 <br />determination; I don’t believe they erred. And you know the thing is though, I feel as though we’re 29 <br />in an age where we’re not trusting professionals to use their professional judgment in making 30 <br />decisions and so, you know, I believe that Mr. Harvey made the right decision when we remanded 31 <br />it back to him or remanded it back to the planning director, who then in turn designated him to 32 <br />weigh in on this, and he has the working professional knowledge as our entire planning staff does 33 <br />to make these determinations with the information that’s out there with the school of government 34 <br />and the Department of Agriculture. And so, I come from the education field where we have to trust 35 <br />our teachers to be the professionals in the classroom and so I understand that and I trust the 36 <br />professionals in our planning department. 37 <br /> 38 <br />Susan Halkiotis: I just, I need to, I appreciate. 39 <br /> 40 <br />Matt Hughes: I don’t appreciate the hisses by the way. 41 <br /> 42 <br />Susan Halkiotis: I appreciate and respect what Matt had to say, and I want to follow up on that just 43 <br />to make sure that I state that I have great respect for Mr. Harvey and in no way would I want any of 44 <br />my comments to be taken to indicate anything other than my respect and appreciation for what he 45 <br />does. 46 <br /> 47