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Approved 12/12/16 OC Board of Adjustment – 10/10/16 Page 89 of 113 should find that it was an error for the Planning Supervisor to determine that the SUP or zoning compliance 1 permit were not required for this use is that the Planning Supervisor got it right twice. He looked at the 2 plans and he said, “This is a wedding venue. It’s been talked to me as a wedding venue. It was an honest 3 application with an honest reflection of what the property owner wanted to do on the property. And, based 4 upon the representations that were made, the determination was made that is what was needed was a 5 SUP.” That was correct. As the people who decide SUP’s and I actually put the definition of SUP in the 6 UDO section that I gave you. Because a SUP means that you have to make special findings to determine 7 that the use is appropriate in the particular location and in that case you found it was not. You found it did 8 not maintain or enhance the value of the contiguous properties. You found it was not in compliance with the 9 general plans for the psychical development for Orange County. You found that none of the 4 findings were 10 supported by evidence and then on that basis you denied that permit. When the permit came back to the 11 Planning Supervisor and there had been a little bit of a change in the description he said, “No, it still needs 12 a SUP” and he was right. He was right it needed a SUP and had it been an application for SUP he would’ve 13 said, “Well, under the ordinance you can’t bring it back yet because you have to wait a year”. It came back 14 the third time and some words had been changed and an affidavit had been filed. And the error that was 15 made is that the County did not look behind the representations made to see if this was still the same use, 16 to see if the size of the building, the size of the parking lot, the size of the septic, the traffic counts, the 17 driveway, to see if any of that was supported by the farming purpose that was there or whether the farming 18 is somehow incidental to the weddings. If you’re planting flowers so that your brides can pick flowers the 19 flower farm is incidental to the wedding not vice versa. And that’s an important distinction under this statute. 20 Although the burden of proof is on us tonight as the appellants in this case under 2.2.3 the burden of proof 21 was on SPG when it applied for the building permit to show that the use proposed met the exception. That 22 it was not a non-farm use. I do not believe that simply filling out an affidavit that says you’re going to do a 23 little work really justifies not looking behind the size, and magnitude of the development that has occurred 24 on this particular tract of land. If you look at section 10.1 of the UDO it picks up the agritourism definition. It 25 fits everything I’ve just told you about what statutes meet. It requires the business be related to or incidental 26 to the agricultural activities on the farm. That’s 10.1 in your package. What we are asking you to do tonight 27 is to look at this in reality. We are asking you to look at what’s really happening on this piece of property. 28 What is the real use of this building and this parking lot and this gigantic septic system and this huge road? 29 And if you look at that and it is more than is necessary, if it’s not incidental to the farming you heard 30 described to you then it would be your obligation to reverse the Planning Director to go back and look at it 31 and look at those issues. And so what we are asking you to do tonight is to reverse the decision that 32 allowed the building permit application to proceed without going through the SUP process. And we’re 33 asking you to remand the matter to the Planning Director that James has set forth for you in these materials 34 of what that would look like procedurally because it’s a bit different than many of the kinds of things you 35 would see. We would also ask you to stay this building permit through this process and that this work out 36 there does not continue to go on through the process. There may be some argument made to you as to 37 whether you have the ability to consider what’s before you tonight. I have put a copy of 160a-388 in your 38 materials as well. That’s the Board of Adjustment statute. It allows you to review decisions made by 39 members of the staff. It would be fool hardy for someone to have appealed to you to say, you need to look 40 at what the building inspector did. The building inspector asked the Planning Supervisor if there was 41 anything more needed before permit is granted. So the decision that is at issue is the decision that we’ve 42 appealed which is should there have been some requirement for zoning? Unless you have questions of me 43 about the statutes or what I believe to be the legal standard that’s before you tonight I would like to reserve 44 the right to, since I have to burden of proof, that I get to go last if I need to rebut anything that Mr. Petesch 45 says. Again, I commend to you the… I know it’s long but I commend to you the findings of fact that we have 46 made. I’ve tried to summarize the evidence you’ve heard. I’ve tried to compare it from quotes from Ms. 47 Brewer that are containing your own Minutes from your own meetings since that was sworn testimony that 48 she gave to you and I believe that if you go through those findings of fact that you would determine in fact, 49