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Approved 12/12/16 OC Board of Adjustment – 10/10/16 Page 35 of 113 Andy Petesch: And this is your husband here, Chris? 1 2 Kara Brewer: Yes. 3 4 Andy Petesch: And you have children? 5 6 Kara Brewer: We do. I have a son who is 9 and a daughter who is 7. 7 8 Andy Petesch: And how long have you been in North Carolina? 9 10 Kara Brewer: I’ve been in North Carolina since I was 8. We lived just outside of Greensboro, Gibsonville. I 11 went to high school at Eastern Carolina Kinston, and then I came up to Chapel Hill for college and just 12 ended up staying. I’ve been in Chapel Hill now for 19 years. 13 14 Andy Petesch: Could you tell the Board about the idea? Where did this idea for a farm originate? 15 16 Kara Brewer: Sure. Well, as the kids got older and went to school. Liala’s in first grade now but as she was 17 entering Kindergarten Chris and I decided that we wanted to do something that we could involve the kids in 18 and get them outside. He has a full time job and he wanted to be outside more as well. So we just really 19 wanted the flexibility, be able to pick up the kids when I could from school and just be able to just involve 20 them in what we’re doing and what was going on, that was a few years ago, so that’s when we first started 21 talking about the idea of starting a farm. 22 23 Andy Petesch: And would you tell the Board about your property search? You said this started several 24 years ago. What year approximately? 25 26 Kara Brewer: Yes, 2012-2013. We were specifically looking for farm property but we had specific criteria. It 27 had to be a certain size for what we needed. I was looking for acreage, 20 acres or more, and that’s very 28 hard to find in Chapel Hill. Very difficult to find so it took us several years to find an appropriate property. 29 30 Andy Petesch: And what were some of the factors that made it hard to find an appropriate parcel, other 31 than size? 32 33 Kara Brewer: Cost. The expense of farmland in Chapel Hill. 34 35 Andy Petesch: And so what was it about this parcel that made it work for you? 36 37 Kara Brewer: The price was more affordable than what we had come across previously. The size was right; 38 it was 20 acres so that would work for our purposes. It also had a clearing as you’ve seen. So we knew that 39 even though most of our activity would be here in the center we could get started pretty much right away 40 because of the cleared area, which was unusual as well. Also, it was dry. A lot of what we had been looking 41 at, even if the price was affordable or the amount of land was correct, sometimes it was just in swamp land 42 which would not have worked out either. 43 44 Andy Petesch: So you were looking to do some type of orchard right away? Were you initially thinking 45 chestnuts? 46 47 Kara Brewer: No actually, initially we were thinking almonds of all things, which I know sounds crazy but it 48 wouldn’t have worked out with the almonds. But through our conversations with finding out more about the 49