‘Local food matters’: NC family farm fighting to limit Highway 31 expansion’s impact
A multi-generational family farm along the North Carolina-South Carolina border remains at risk due to the planned Highway 31 expansion, but the owners are hoping community support saves their land.
Sam Bellamy and his daughter Sallie Lun operate Indigo Farms, which has been in their family for generations.
“Our family ties go back to 1763. … Our roots are here,” Bellamy previously told The Sun News.
All of that history has been in peril, though, since the North Carolina and South Carolina departments of transportation announced plans to extend Carolina Bays Parkway from S.C. 9 in Horry County to U.S. 17 in Brunswick County and most of the proposed routes would run right through Indigo Farms.
Once completed, the road will be between 19 to 22 miles in length with a four- to six-lane highway connecting with U.S. Highway 17 somewhere south of Shallotte, N.C., depending on the final route.
In total, the project is expected to cost $552 million with North Carolina spending $367 million of it.
Bellamy and Lun recently discovered that the N.C. Department of Transportation is requesting funding from the Federal Highway Administration, so they’ve started asking their supporters to contact the administration before Sunday, Nov. 7 to ask that they spare Indigo Farms.
“We just want the them to know how the community feels,” Lun said. “Local food matters, and there’s not that many local farms left.”
The project planners initially offered eight proposed routes, and only routes 7 and 8 completely avoided the farm, but Lun said she understands those routes haven’t received much support because they would go through developed portions of Brunswick County.
Various community meetings and public comments showed Routes 1 and 4 received the most support, and slight alternates to each of those routes have since been developed, but all those would destroy Indigo Farms, according to Lun, who’s hoping officials can just make some additional adjustments to those routes to avoid impacting the farm.
The COVID-19 pandemic and funding uncertainty have appeared to delay the project’s implementation but that feeling of being in limbo has prevented the family from making long terms decisions on improvements at the farm, Lun noted.
Horry County is responsible for funding $185 million of the project cost, with $125 million from the RIDE III program already budgeted. County leaders have asked Sen. Lindsey Graham to earmark the $60 million funding gap in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan.
South Carolina has planned to begin purchasing the land needed for the road in 2022, but project leaders could not be reached to determine whether that timeline is still realistic.
If land is purchased by the government, regulations require a fair deal be made with the property owner that minimizes the financial impact of having to move.
Bellamy previously told The Sun News that no amount of money would be worth leaving his family farm.
