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Approved 11/8/2010 OC Board of Adjustment – 10/11/2010 Page 7 of 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 be April 14, 2008 which is when the Special Use Permit for the ag center was issued as reflected not only within the application but the minutes which are contained in attachment B. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have anything else at this juncture. Tom Brown: Ok, thank you. Would the appellant like to present their case? Mike Parker: Absolutely. First of all let me ask you, is there a copy of the Special Use Permit itself in the record? Michael Harvey: Part of my packet, yes. Mike Parker: I would like to begin by drawing your attention to, what is in my copy. The second page is a description of the development. By the way, I am Mike Parker. I am an attorney here in town, I am also Bob Nutter’s son-in-law. The description of the development I think is critical to look at to begin this process because it describes the facility itself, 6,000 square foot building housing the proposed educational facility with class and meeting rooms. I would like to point that out to the Board of Adjustment. You can read the rest of the provisions. We feel that we have complied with each and every provision set forth in the Special Use Permit. With all due respect to Mr. Harvey, and he’s been very good to work with, we’ve had several meetings about this and he and I go way back. I think he’s taking too restrictive of a view of what we consider to be this facility’s intended purpose and what is covered by the Special Use Permit itself. This facility is designed for education and there is nowhere in the Special Use Permit that I am aware of or in anything else that says it will only be used for field trips which I think is what, if I’m understanding the planning staff’s position, they are trying to restrict what the facility is used for. I would like to pass out some pictures of the facility. If you’d just take a moment and look through here. Tom Brown: Mr. Parker, do you wish to enter this into the record? Mike Parker: Yes, I would like to. Tom Brown: Madame Secretary, enter that into the record as exhibit one. Mike Parker: We have a description on this page of birthday parties which is one of the bones of contention, as I understand it, with the activities that are occurring at the center. We have in the back of this booklet that I given you a couple of letters from parents of children who have held birthday parties at the facility. You’ll see if you look at the description that there are a lot of educational activities going on at this facility. Bob Nutter is, as probably all you know, a very initiative farmer. In spite of the fact that he is now in his 80s, he has for the last 15 years started bottling his own milk rather than closing down his dairy as many have done in this county. A few years ago he opened up an ice cream store on the premises and started making ice cream from that milk. One of the things that has long concerned him is the fact that children today do not realize that the food they eat doesn’t just come from Food Lion. It comes from the farm and with less and less farming activity around he considers it very important to educate children about what is going on and where the food begins and comes from before it reaches your table. He’s had this idea in his head for a good many years and the birthday parties, quite frankly, are simply one way to reach children, offer them fun activities, something that they will enjoy, and to educate them at the same time, sneak up on them with some education. You’ll see some pictures in here from activities at the birthday parties on the farm and that hayrides occur during the birthday parties as well. We have also in here a list of all the room rentals of the facility since it was opened and that list is only one page long. Yes, some of those are fund raising events, mostly for nonprofit organizations. For example, one of the things that we propose to do, you may have heard about the tragic death of Rob Hogan here in the last few weeks, that family had planned to have an event to raise money for seeing eye dogs which is a charity that they have supported for years on their farm but because of his unfortunate and untimely death, they have asked to use the facility at Mapleview. That event will include activities just like field trips, just like birthday parties. We’re doing the same thing for those activities