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their opposition centered on yearround use.
Mrs. Gorfein said that in 1979, when George Sharp built what she called “a migrant camp for two or three workers during the harvest season,” her husband gave an electric right-of-way for the structure. That housing has since been used year-round, and, Mrs. Gorfein charged, was built without the required special use permit. “We didn’t challenge that then, but we are about to,” she warned.
In 1984, when Alex Sharp sought a special use permit for “a new migrant camp,” her husband objected, but only on the basis of the proposed location, Mrs. Gorfein said, questioning why, with a 225-acre farm, Mr. Sharp chose to build 450 to 475 feet from their property line. She insisted, however, that she and her husband had “no problem” with the new migrant housing and what she termed the old migrant camp. “It’s the notion of going beyond the harvest season. For the past year, Henry and I have done very little else but have nightmares over this,” Mrs. Gorfein said. “We are downplayed as having lesser rights because ... we’re only residential.”
“Henry and I plan to put a vineyard in .. . We understand the need for low cost migrant help,” Mrs. Gorfein continued. “Alex, as far as I’m concerned, can have as much as he needs. But it comes down to harvest time and beyond,” she said, reporting that her research found that the State Department of Agriculture knows of no year-round migrant camps in Virginia.
How do orchardists in other localities with a far larger number of acres in fruit trees get winter pruning done, she asked, rhetorically. “Pruning crews come through there just like they do in Rappahannock,” Mrs. Gorfein said. The transient crews may arrive late and they may be shorthanded, “but they get it done, just like Rappahannock has gotten it done until now.”
She contended that tenant housing is for year-round farm help while migrant camps are for seasonal laborers. “When you start trying to turn a migrant labor camp into tenant housing, that’s when it affects everybody.” Migrants on the job year-round will demand county services, Mrs. Gorfein maintained. “A migrant worker, if he stays, he belongs to us and his family belongs to us, and we’re responsible,” she told the planning commissioners.
“Our house and we were there before the migrant labor camps. We have no objection to orchards, seasonal migrant labor camps, cows, pigs, fresh air, but we object to a year-round facility that is unique in Virginia.”
“What are the ramifications of a year-round camp as opposed to a seasonal one?” asked Commissioner Fannon.
“My only investment is my property. I’m not a wealthy man,” Henry Gorfein answered. He said that a
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