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Letter to the editor: Airport threatens farms

Posted on September 11, 2008September 11, 2008 by Staff

As airport plans pit the university against rural Orange County, another issue is affecting about 100 largely rural Orange and Alamance County families: the decision by the county boards to consider altering the county line. In 1849, Alamance County was split off of Orange when surveyors drew a line from a “gum saplin” on the Person County line to a “birch shrub” on the Haw River. However, more than 100 years of practice mean that this “line” has been superceded for years by a tax line that is not straight. Our own property has been part of Orange County for at least 50 years, and probably much longer.

It is hard for us to see why a vague line drawn in 1849 should trump years of settled fact.

Landowners and residents have lived with the current county line for generations, and shaped their lives around it. It has built community in many important ways. Our own lives reflect that. Orange County is our home! We work at UNC, shop Carrboro, attend church in Chapel Hill, vote in Orange County elections and work as volunteers in Orange County schools, where our daughters attend. In a parallel way, people in Mebane have shaped their lives around Alamance County. These historical facts mean something very important to people, and that came out loud and clear at a recent public meeting.

The two counties shaped their plans for decades around the current line. Schools were built, fire stations sited, police and EMS service planned, trash and recycling centers built — all based on the current lines. All of our services (mail, fire, EMS) come from Orange County.

Without a helicopter, we are isolated from any of these services in Alamance County. Most problematic is the school issue. The nearest middle and high schools in Alamance County are more than 30 miles away and, worse, are in a direction opposite that we take on the way to work.

We face a 70-mile trip both morning and evening, impossible for two working parents.

We hope that the commissioners consider these three issues very carefully in making decisions. At a recent public meeting, 70+ landowners were in attendance, likely most of those affected in the southern half of the county, and it was clear from the show of hands that more then 80 percent of us oppose making this change. Who will this benefit?
This appears to be driven by a few developers in Mebane. They have resources to threaten legal action and the ability to hire the former assistant county manager as a lobbyist, but shouldn’t have more sway in this matter than ordinary folks seeing their communities radically altered.

Mark Peifer and Carol Ann McCormick

Chapel Hill

1 thought on “Letter to the editor: Airport threatens farms”

  1. Tammy says:
    September 11, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    Totally agree with you both. The main person wanting this airport lives in the center of Chapel Hill and will not be effected like the ones who have lived in Orange county. My family have lived in White Cross – since my grandfather started our dairy farm. The thought of someone coming in with idea of just stealing (and that is what it is) our family land and heritage, for a stupid airport to be used by people in down town Chapel Hill. That is cold. Use what you have or look at area closer to Duke and use the airport with Duke or area at RDU. It will not be used for emergency basis so the location does not make it something that has to be any closer than family farm land like my family or my friends family where I grew up. Joe Hackney needs to rethink what he has started and what he is doing for the people he is suppose to be representing. I don’t live on family land right now, but I still have family that lives there and they are too old to dig up roots and try to start over. Yes, I am furious over this. We are just plain country folks who thought we were being taken care of, not being taken advantage of like I am seeing now.

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