Will big turnout by farm supporters sway the DOT? Supporters say maybe

By ALEX GREGOR
DavidsonNews.net

The owners of Barbee Farms in Cabarrus County say they’re “cautiously optimistic” that a big turnout by supporters at a public hearing Thursday will convince the North Carolina Department of Transportation to reconsider plans for a road through the six-generation family farm.

Dozens of citizens gathered at a public hearing Thursday night at Northwest Cabarrus High School to discuss a highway improvement project that would extend  I-85, connect I-485 in Charlotte with N.C. 73 in Cabarrus County, and widen I-85 from four to eight lanes.

Most speakers at Thursday’s hearing were concerned about one part of the plan: the proposed realignment of Pitt School Road, a two-lane road intersecting Poplar Tent Road near the junction of Poplar Tent Road and I-85. NCDOT plans for the project had proposed rerouting Pitt School Road in such a way that it would bisect Barbee Farms, a produce farm that has been farmed by the Barbee family for six generations. (See our Sept. 30 article, “State DOT plots a road through Barbee Farms”.

Following the hearing, farmer Tommy Barbee said he felt “cautiously optimistic” about what he heard from NCDOT. “Engineers told me that the public response has been such that there’s no way they think they could justify what they were intending to do,” Mr. Barbee said.

An NCDOT official agreed with arguments that farm traffic could be a hazard if the new road is built, and said and alternate plan is worth considering.

At the public hearing, more than 20 community members spoke on Barbee Farms’ behalf, addressing an auditorium full of regional and state representatives of NCDOT, as well as a significant crowd that turned out to support for Barbee Farms after local food activist Christy Shi rallied support for the farm.

After a brief overview of the project given by NCDOT, Mr. Barbee was the first speaker to step up to the podium. Barbee explained that the realignment of Pitt School Road recommended by NCDOT would destroy seven acres of the Barbees’ land. The new road would separate fields from the farm’s retail, washing, and packing facilities, requiring the Barbees to cross it many times a day with heavy farm machinery.

Mr. Barbee also said the realignment would disrupt the farm’s irrigation and power infrastructure. Four of the seven acres that would be affected are irrigated cropland that would be removed from agricultural production. “In the produce business,” Mr. Barbee said, “this is huge.”

Mr. Barbee encouraged NCDOT to reconsider an alternative realignment of Pitt School Road that had been dismissed in the Environmental Assessment conducted for the project. “Certainly there are other alternatives that are less destructive to our community, our farm, and our livelihood that would still move traffic” through the area, Mr. Barbee said.

He noted that if NCDOT adopted the alternative alignment in question, which community residents, along with local food and land conservation activists have dubbed “Plan B,” the Barbees would not be forced to cross Pitt School Road to reach their fields. Mr. Barbee suggested that this would make Plan B for Pitt School Road substantially safer than Plan A, even though Plan B would still include a fairly sharp turn at one point.

Traffic and environmental engineers had initially recommended Plan A as a way to do away with a hairpin turn in the existing alignment of Pitt School Road.

SECOND FARM AFFECTED

Tony Bonds, a farmer and neighbor of the Barbees, said the realignment proposed by NCDOT also would cut through one of his most productive fields. “I make my living off this land,” he said. Mr. Bonds encouraged NCDOT engineers to adopt Plan B.

He also spoke on behalf of historic Poplar Tent Presbyterian Church, where he is a session member. At present, the church has six entrances to its property. The proposed plan would render all but two of those entrances inaccessible. Asking for a revision of the plans that would accommodate the church’s needs, he observed, “We have been there for 258 years,” Mr. Bonds said. “We were there before Poplar Tent Road was there.”

Bob Critz, owner of R&R BBQ, also encouraged NCDOT to adopt Plan B. Plan A, he said, would take away all of his drive-by traffic.

Other individuals who spoke up for the Barbees included Carol Mayes of Mayes Wilson & Associates, a land conservation consultancy, Debbie Bost and David Goforth of the Cabarrus County Cooperative Extension Office, and Christy Shi of Davidson-based Know Your Farms LLC.

Marilyn Marks, program director for the Society of St. Andrew Gleaners, said that the Barbees’ farm is a critical part of hunger relief efforts in the Charlotte region. The farm donated more than 25,000 pounds of fresh produce last summer.

No one present at the hearing recommended NCDOT to adopt Plan A.

DOT: ALTERNATE PLAN WORTH CONSIDERING

As a result of public support for the Barbees, which also included hundreds of emails to NCDOT offices in Raleigh, along with many phone calls to regional and state level representatives of NCDOT, highway engineers have made plans to meet the visit the Barbees’ land later this month to meet with them and other community members.

Wilson Stroud, a Project Planning Engineer in NCDOT’s Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch, acknowledged that farm traffic would present an increased traffic hazard if NCDOT were to move ahead with Plan A. He and other engineers present at the hearing readily acknowledged the merits of Plan B and said that it was well-worth considering.

NCDOT expects to make a decision about the realignment of the road approximately six weeks from now at a post-hearing meeting. The project could go to right of way as early as April 2010.

Mr. Barbee observed that the community support for his family’s farm has been “overwhelming.”

Speaking today after the hearing, he said “the people spoke last night. I think it will be something that they [NCDOT] will remember.”