
{"id":6251,"date":"2009-06-18T08:52:25","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T16:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=6251"},"modified":"2009-06-18T08:52:25","modified_gmt":"2009-06-18T16:52:25","slug":"board-holds-farm-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/06\/18\/board-holds-farm-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Board holds farm talk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Beth Mechum<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It started with a dispute about an apartment, and it led to a heated exchange Tuesday night between farmers and town government officials at the Carrboro Board of Aldermen meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Opinions were plenty at Town Hall, and though no resolutions were passed, many are hopeful it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the start of improved communication and relationships between the farmers and town government.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nIt won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be an easy road.<\/p>\n<p>In the past couple of months, local farmers have met with members of the Carrboro town planning board to discuss their concerns about Carr-boro regulations and the planning board has also been discussing farming. Farmers and those with farming-related concerns were asked to share their thoughts with the board.<\/p>\n<p>Much of this came from a case involving Marilyn Kille, who was accused of having an illegal apartment on her farm in 2006. Many farmers in the area have expressed the need for a caretaker apartment to keep their farms running, which can violate the land-use ordinance. That turned out to be just the tipping point of concerns many farmers had with Carrboro regulations, citing rules that were too old and the inability to vote in elections for leaders that ultimately make decisions about their properties.<\/p>\n<p>The term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153farm code\u00e2\u20ac\u009d kept coming up. Some farmers said it could be a good thing to work on some sort of code with the town in order to provide input. Mayor Mark Chilton said he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the term farm code was a legally viable one, and what most farmers expressed was the need for less regulation, not more.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you have an interest in local food, food-security issues \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 you have to look at this issue from how do we support farming,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ann Leonard of Hogan Farms stood up to say,<br \/>\nemphasizing it should not be about control.<\/p>\n<p>The inability to participate in electing town officials for the extraterritorial jurisdiction was a rallying point for the 15 or so farming families in the room. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s North Carolina state law, Chilton said, one the board can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do anything about.<\/p>\n<p>Though many issues have been brought up, the discussion ultimately turns back to the caretaker apartments. Farmers want the ability to build an apartment for farmhands to live in without a rezoning of their land or violating the land-use ordinance.<\/p>\n<p>Planning Board member Sharon Cook addressed this issue, presenting a proposed text amendment to the town that was dismissed as being too broad.<\/p>\n<p>The issue of rent has been raised by board members Dan Coleman and Jacquie Gist, and they said that for an amendment to be passed, there will need to be stricter rules on what a caretaker or farmhand actually is or does, and whether the apartment is paid for by rent or is part of the caretaker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s compensation.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s husband, Robert Hogan, said he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand why rent is the issue, saying some aldermen are anti-farm and anti-business.<\/p>\n<p>Chilton said the lawsuit between Kille and the town raised the issue, and the town wanted a hearing on the issues in order to clear the air.<\/p>\n<p>Chilton said now that the issue of caretaker housing has been discussed, the town and farmers could start working to get it resolved.<\/p>\n<p>In other action Tuesday night, the board approved and adopted the $19.1 million fiscal 2010 operating budget.<\/p>\n<p>The budget includes a revenue-neutral property tax rate of 58.94 cents per $100 of valuation. The recommended rate was adjusted down from the fiscal 2009 rate of 68.63 cents to account for the recent property revaluation. This year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s revaluation produced a tax base of nearly $1.9 billion, compared with about $1.6 billion in fiscal 2009.<\/p>\n<p>While the tax rate provides no increase in revenue for the town, taxpayers could see an increase in their tax bills, depending on how the recent revaluation affected their property values.<\/p>\n<p>The budget includes $19,075,434 in recommended general-fund expenditures and revenues, with property and sales tax accounting for 73 percent of revenues. The budget year begins July 1.<\/p>\n<p>Also Tuesday, Alderman John Herrera announced he will not run for re-election, saying that he wanted to spend more time with his family. The Board of Aldermen is on a six-week hiatus and will resume weekly meetings in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Beth Mechum Staff Writer It started with a dispute about an apartment, and it led to a heated exchange Tuesday night between farmers and town government officials at the Carrboro Board of Aldermen meeting. Opinions were plenty at Town Hall, and though no resolutions were passed, many are hopeful it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the start of improved&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6252,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6251\/revisions\/6252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}