Franklin Co. Denies Communal Farm, Apartment Request

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

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 and Zoning Commission.

Earlier this month, 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.

Then, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners upheld the Planning Commission’s decision at its regular meeting after hearing from County Planning Director John Phillips.

Davis said that 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.

The community barn Davis said would raise 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 there.

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

However, Phillips said the Planning Commission turned down her rezoning application because it did not meet Franklin 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, dozens of residents of the Pleasant Hill Road area came out to protest Davis’ plan.

Phillips 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 said 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 time line as to when she intends to resubmit her proposal.