The End of Dairyland Road?

BIKE BEAT

By Michael Schwalbe
Columnist

When you’re on a bike, a road is more than a strip of tarmac under your tires. A road is the sum of the sights, sounds, and smells it offers, the effort it demands, and the safe or perilous passage it affords. All these things make some roads a pleasure to ride and others an ordeal. Dairyland Road is in the former category.

Running between Old NC 86 (Hillsborough Road) in Calvander and Orange Grove Road about seven miles to the west, Dairyland offers lovely views of rural Orange County. Long, flat stretches are punctuated by piquant dips and hills. Car traffic is light, allowing cyclists to enjoy the road with a feeling of safety. But this might be about to change.

Union Grove Farm’s central operations area, as seen from the intersection of Dairyland Road and Meadow View Road. Photo by Michael Schwalbe.

What Dairyland Road stands to become in the near future is linked to the big plans of Greg Bohlen, owner of Union Grove Farm. Bohlen wants more than the sheep and grapes that have replaced the cows and corn of Maple View Farm, which he bought in 2022. Bohlen now wants to build ten cottages, an outdoor pool and bar, a restaurant, a small hotel, a 1000-square-foot event space, a distillery, and a 2500-seat amphitheater.

Neighbors have pushed back against these plans, citing concerns about noise, increased traffic, groundwater pollution, and spoliation of the area’s rural character. Ordinarily, county zoning regulations—Union Grove Farm is in Orange County’s Rural Buffer District—could forestall or mitigate these problems. But Bohlen has sought exemption from these regulations under North Carolina’s agritourism laws.

Odd as it might seem to construe a 2500-seat concert venue as an implement of agritourism, this definition has found traction in some official quarters. In November 2024, Cy Stober, director of planning and inspections for Orange County, issued an opinion that held the amphitheater to be exempt from zoning regulations under the state’s agritourism law. However, Stober rejected a similar claim about the hotel, restaurant, pool, and bar.

The neighbors who are pushing back have appealed to the Orange County Board of Adjustment to reverse Stober’s opinion that the amphitheater is exempt from county zoning regulations. Appellants have argued that an amphitheater is not permitted in a rural buffer district, that mass-assembly entertainment events are not rural activities as defined by the state’s agritourism laws, and that the amphitheater has no direct relation to farming and is only incidentally located on a farm.

Bohlen, for his part, has posted a statement online alleging “discrepancies and misconceptions in recent communications regarding our operation.” He also claims that Orange County has already approved his plans. But in fact matters are more complicated. The Orange County Board of Adjustment has yet to review the case and make a final decision. This won’t happen until after June 11, when the Board will hear the appeal at a public meeting in Hillsborough (7:00 p.m., Whitted Human Services Building).

There is another hitch that could derail Bohlen’s plans. In 1995, Robert Nutter, then owner of Maple View Farm, signed a conservation easement with Triangle Land Conservancy. The easement, which is effectively part of the deed to the Maple View/Union Grove property, protects in perpetuity “the open space character, agricultural productivity, watershed [quality], and scenic qualities of the Property.” The property included in the easement is most of Union Grove Farm outside of a central “farm operations envelope.” 

To protect the easement, Triangle Land Conservancy has joined in asking the Board of Adjustment to reverse Stober’s opinion. For Triangle Land Conservancy, the stakes are high, as the outcome of the case could affect public confidence in the strength of other conservation agreements the organization makes with land owners.

It’s hard to know precisely how Bohlen’s plans for developing Union Grove Farm will affect traffic volume and road safety in the area. The roads that serve the farm in all directions are narrow and nearly shoulderless. For the most part, that’s not a problem in rural areas with low traffic volume.

But add an amphitheater with a seating capacity nearly that of the Durham Performing Arts Center, a bar and restaurant, a small hotel, and a distillery, and there is no doubt that the number of distracted (and possibly impaired) drivers will increase—to the detriment of other road users’ safety. I’m not the only cyclist worried about this prospect.

The Carolina Tarwheels, a cycling club with over 500 members, published a statement in its March newsletter expressing concern “about the potential impacts of the [Union Grove Farm] project on roads our members frequently utilize, particularly regarding increased traffic and safety of bicycle riders.” The statement goes on to “urge the applicant,” Bohlen, “to thoroughly assess these impacts on both the club members and the residents of the neighboring farms and communities affected by the project.”

That’s a nice ask. But of course it shouldn’t be up to Bohlen to assess the potential impacts of his project and decide whether to take them into account. Assessing and regulating impacts is a job for local authorities accountable to the public. It’s also worth noting that, according to his neighbors, Bohlen has already begun building the amphitheater and a new road to reach it. Which suggests that it’s too late for polite requests to make a difference.

A project on the scale of Union Grove Farm, if undertaken within the town limits of Carrboro or Chapel Hill, would require a traffic impact analysis. This would be true in the county as well—if the amphitheater were subject to zoning regulations. But as Orange County planning officials told me, with reference to the amphitheater, “zoning regulations, which may otherwise require a traffic impact analysis for similar uses, can not be applied to the agritourism use described.”

Back side of Union Grove Farm as seen from adjacent property. Neighbors allege the gravel road in the foreground is prohibited by a conservation easement with Triangle Land Conservancy. Photo by Michael Schwalbe.

One irony here is that for years, when cycling advocates have argued for safety upgrades to NCDOT-controlled roads in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, they often have been daunted by requirements for expensive traffic impact studies. Want to add a buffered bike lane? Lower a speed limit? Install bicycle-friendly markings and lights at an intersection? Well, maybe, as long as money is available for a study to show that motorists won’t be delayed.

Yet out in the county it is apparently possible, using an expansive definition of agritourism, to evade such requirements, even when developments are likely to put vulnerable road users at risk. To be clear, I think local officials and transportation staff do the best they can. The inconsistency in how road safety is handled in North Carolina stems from a crazy quilt of jurisdictional responsibilities, myopic budget priorities, and hardball politicking that occurs beyond the local level.

No matter what happens on the Union Grove Farm property in the near future, cyclists will continue to use Dairyland Road. It remains a major artery for many rides that start in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. A few decades ago there were more options—more roads affording cyclists safe passage into and out of town and through a quiet rural landscape of woods and fields. Many of these roads are now too busy to be safe; they have moved from the pleasure to the ordeal category. It would be a shame to see Dairyland Road suffer the same fate.

Michael Schwalbe is a retired professor of sociology and an unretired cyclist. He has lived in Chapel Hill since 1990.