BOA agenda 121018 - cancelled due to weather

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1 2 LeAnn Brown said she has other reasons for the board to rule in her party's favor. In March 2016 there was an 3 application for a building permit and the planning supervisor determined that a building permit was not needed. The 4 Board of Adjustment heard that and remanded it back to Michael Harvey. That was appealed and that appeal is 5 pending. Then the current planning supervisor on remand determined that it was a bona fide farm and the use of the 6 barn for weddings was incidental to the farm use. That was around November 2016. Her party appealed on December 7 1, 2016, and that case was heard on March 17, 2017. There is a pattern of taking a long time for her to get before the 8 Board of Adjustment, LeAnn Brown added. The Board of Adjustment determined that the barn was an events center 9 and reversed the current planning supervisor. That's on appeal. There was a petition for review for that filed on May 4, 10 2017. There was an NOV (Notice of Violation) that was issued that Southeast Property Group, LLC, has appealed. Her 11 party filed an appeal of the determination that it was a rural special events center, which is one of the things that 12 happened. Those appeals have never been heard. And then we have this appeal. 13 14 LeAnn Brown said her first contention to this board is that because of the doctrines of res judicata and collateral 15 estoppel that this matter is not properly before the board and the board should determine that those doctrines should 16 prohibit Kara Brewer from seeking the opinion that she sought from Michael Harvey. LeAnn Brown plans to talk about 17 why her party believes the current planning supervisor erred and why she thinks he erred in saying that the materials 18 that he had before him were sufficient to comply with the current version of N.C.G.S. §153A-340(b)(2a). The party has a 19 pending application before the court to compel further compliance with the subpoenas this board issued. She said she 20 looked at whether to postpone this hearing because that's pending and she wanted to preserve her rights to seek 21 additional documents and so that has been filed, but in looking at the documents that the subpoenaed parties chose to 22 produce to the board that are in Exhibit 1, she thinks the evidence is clear that Orange County erred in determining that 23 the owner of the property has an exemption certificate from the North Carolina Department of Revenue. She said she 24 thinks the last time she was before this board, Randy Herman asked her if she thought this board could look behind the 25 Department of Revenue to determine whether the information that department had was adequate to issue the 26 certificate. She does not plan to get there tonight but what Orange County did was look behind the clear language on 27 the face of the certificate and connect dots to say that a certificate issued to some entity other than the owner of the 28 property was in fact a certificate for the owner of the property. The certificate is issued in the name Wild Flora Farm. It is 29 not Wild Flora Farm, LLC. Wild Flora Farm, LLC, did not exist on the date the certificate was issued. 30 31 Karen Barrows noted that LeAnn Brown had spoken for 30 minutes and asked if she could wrap up in the next 10 32 minutes. 33 34 LeAnn Brown said she could wrap up in 10 to 15 minutes and asked that the board give her at least as much time as 35 County Attorney James Bryan and Current Planning Supervisor Michael Harvey took. LeAnn Brown said she is not 36 presenting a lot of evidence but she wants to be sure her party has the proper due process for the board to hear this 37 argument in full. 38 39 LeAnn Brown read the portion of the N.C.G.S. §153A-340(b)(2a) that states that the property owner must hold the 40 qualifying certificate of a farming sales tax exemption. She noted that the sales tax exemption certificate requires an 41 income from farming of$10,000 for the previous tax year or for an average of$10,000 a year over a three-year period. 42 The certificate is dated November 22, 2017. The preceding tax year would be 2016. The profit-and-loss sheet produced 43 identifies the tax year as 2016. That document lists Wild Flora Farm without the LLC and lists Kara Brewer's name 44 under it. The application included in the documents that were produced in answer to the subpoena has Kara Brewer as 45 the applicant doing business as Wild Flora Farm. What that means is that the person who applied was Kara Brewer and 46 she used the DBA of Wild Flora Farm. There is no evidence that she used the DBA of Wild Flora Farm as an individual 47 but that's what her application to the Department of Revenue says. So, LeAnn Brown thinks the board should look at 48 that at face value and say the person who applied is Kara Brewer doing business as Wild Flora Farm. The entity that 49 owned the property at the time the application was made was Southeast Property Group, LLC. There is no dispute 50 about that. Wild Flora Farm, LLC, was not created until February 14, 2017. It could not have had income in 2016. The 10