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