Roughly three hundred people crowded into the meeting room of the Whitted Building on May 28 for a community meeting on the future of the property that once was Maple View Farm. Throughout the event, the crowd cheered and applauded emphatically as speakers voiced opposition toward Union Grove Farm and its majority owner, Greg Bohlen, for his plans to further commercialize the land. While part of a land conservancy, the farm is also within the Orange County Rural Buffer zoning district, which prohibits most commercial and industrial activities in order to preserve locations for rural residential development and agricultural uses. While state law exempts farm-related activities from county zoning rules, this does not apply to non-farm-related land uses even if they’re taking place on farmland. Agritourism activities only qualify for the exemption if the farm setting is essential to the activity, rather than just being incidental. Derb Carter — an attorney with the Southern Environmenta...