Owners Tommy and Anna Barbee with Brent Barbee, right, the farm manager. (Barbee Farms photo)

By ALEX GREGOR
DavidsonNews.net

N.C. Department of Transportation officials decided Wednesday not to move forward with a proposed realignment of Pitt School Road near Concord. The NC DOT’s original plan would have cut through Barbee Farms, a family run farm that supplies fresh produce for area farmers’ markets and businesses.

DOT official: Learning “what the farm means to the community” made the difference.

Read the full story

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. Read the full story

Owners Tommy (top) and Anna Barbee with farm manager Brent Barbee, whose home could be lost. (Barbee Farms photo)

Public hearing is
Thursday in Concord

By ALEX GREGOR
DavidsonNews.net

Just over two weeks ago, Cabarrus County farmers Tommy and Anna Barbee received a letter from the N.C. Department of Transportation announcing a public hearing on Thursday, Oct. 1. It mentioned a project to widen I-85 to an eight-lane highway, connecting I-485 in Charlotte with NC 73 near Poplar Tent in Cabarrus County.

Mr. Barbee had learned of the project more than a year ago when an earlier public hearing gave landowners the chance to speak with project engineers from NCDOT. But this letter was his first notice that the DOT plans are calling for Pitts School Road, which currently runs close to his farm, to be re-routed straight through his land. Read the full story

Tommy Barbee of Barbee Farms at Davidson Farmers Market.

As our region plans for more growth, a conflict is emerging between the need for infrastructure to support development and growing desires to preserve open space and protect family farms.

Battles are underway in at least two locations this fall – Barbee Farms in Cabarrus County, where a road project could split the farm in two, and the Alexander farm, off Presbyterian Road in Mount Mourne, where a Mooresville sewer project is planned across the property. Read the full story