Fiddlehead Corner is a potential housing development trying to gain approval for construction on Morrow Mill Road in Orange County. To do so, however, the County must amend its zoning permits so the development can proceed.
According to Fiddlehead Corner’s website, the development will include 145 new residential units, including duplexes, multi-story buildings and a common building featuring a dance hall, among other amenities. Geothermal and solar energy will be used to power the development.
The Triangle Traditional Music and Dance Retirement Society, which formed in 2014 by a group of contra dancers, introduced the idea of Fiddlehead Corner in conjunction with the Hands Four Development Cooperative, a branch of the society established to handle the new development.
"The goal of the Fiddlehead community is to have a place for living in retirement — where a group of people who have known one another through a particular activity can live together, taking care of one another as they age in place,” Ed Cox, the president of the Hands Four Development Cooperative, said.
Cy Stober, the Orange County planning and inspection director, said the Cooperative and the Society have been discussing Fiddlehead Corner with the Orange County Board of County Commissioners for roughly two years. Recently, the organizations have been facing zoning issues with the development.
One of the issues has to do with a disconnect between local and state law, Stober said. He said that according to state law, all residential zoning districts must be allowed to have family care facilities. However, local law does not permit them in the proposed development's zoning district. The Board would have to approve a change to the local ordinance for Fiddlehead Corner's development to be approved, he said.
Stober said another issue with the development is that Fiddlehead Corner is a master plan development, but the plot of land it is currently intended for falls under a rural neighborhood activity node, which does not permit master plans.
The development exceeds the acre limit for rural neighborhood activity nodes, which are intended for small-scale uses. Stober said the Hands Four Development Cooperative team submitted an application to expand the node to encompass all 90 acres of Fiddlehead Corner.
Andrew Shaver, a community member that lives next to the plot of land intended for Fiddlehead Corner, said the potential expansion of the activity node is the biggest issue with the development because it takes advantage of residents that intentionally chose the area due to its land use plan.
