North Carolina Woman Plans Agricultural Community in Martin

A North Carolina woman says she will go back to the drawing board to get her plan to turn chicken houses into homes centered around a communal farm approved by the Franklin County Planning Commission.

Last week, the Franklin County Planning Commission denied a request by Carrie Davis to turn a row of poultry houses on Pleasant Hill Road in Martin into apartments.

At their regular meeting last week, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners upheld the Planning Commissions decision after hearing from County Planning Director John Phillips.

Davis said even though her plan was turned down, she does intend to resubmit it.

“This is an amazing project and I definitely plan on going forward with it even though the Commission has turned it down,” Davis said. “The reason it was turned down was because I didn’t have all of the zoning laws given to me in an appropriate amount of time. Right now we have to finalize all of the plans for roads, lighting, and things like that.”

Davis is calling her complex Viridis Village.

According to Davis, the community would be family oriented and would turn existing poultry houses on the property to what she called green sustainable and affordable homes that people could rent.

“These would be 1,200 square foot homes. Of course, we’re going to tear down the chicken houses and completely sanitize the wood and then use the wood to build the homes,” she said. “We also plan to tear down the poultry houses we don’t use and use that wood to build the barn.”

The community barn Davis said would house chickens and small livestock such as goats to give children who would normally not have the chance, the opportunity to become involved in FFA and 4-H and learn the benefits of farming.

Also included in the complex she said would be raised garden beds, hen houses, as well as three stocked fishing ponds.

Davis, who lives in the Asheville area says there are several such communities in that area.

Davis and co-owner Rollo Walker petitioned the Planning Commission to rezone the property from Agricultural to Residential.

But Phillips said the Planning Commission turned down her rezoning application because it did not meet County guidelines

“There are a lot of safety issues, relative to water and sewage, fire protection, access to streets and the proposal that was submitted did not satisfy those requirements,” Phillips said.

At the planning hearing last week, dozens of residents of the Pleasant Hill Road area came out to protest Davis’ plan.

Philips said people who would live nearby had concerns about safety and were skeptical of the kinds of people who would be living at the complex.

“They had concerns over the safety issues and also the fact that it was pretty much in a rural area where most properties are zone agricultural,” Phillips explained. “They had concerns over the traffic and the number of people that may actually be living there on the property.”

However, Davis says people living nearby the property don’t have anything to fear.

“I think mostly what neighbors are worried about is that they’re scared about the kind of people who will be living there and that it will be low housing and the people won’t be as nice,” Davis said. “But I don’t think that’s a fair argument because anybody can buy a house next door to you and they may not be nice.”

Davis did not have a timeline as to when she intends to resubmit her proposal.