The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service has submitted a rezoning request to the Town of Carrboro to add FoodFirst, a community kitchen, to its West Main Street location. The building is currently used as a food pantry.

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to add a text amendment in March that allowed the IFC to apply to add a community kitchen to the location. But Co-Director John Dorward said it’s best for the organization to tear down the building and start from scratch.

“The way it’s chopped up and the way it was built—it’s just not something that we can renovate,” he said. “And we knew that if we wanted to use this building that we would want to take it down. So, part of the last capital campaign when we were raising the money for the new men’s shelter, which we have now completed and have been in for a little over a year, was to raise the money to pay off this building.”

The IFC spent the summer after getting the text amendment approved gathering community input on what they should do, and even looked at possibly using another location for the project.

Some business owners and residents had initially voiced concern over both the community kitchen and pantry being on West Main Street, but IFC officials decided it would be imperative to offer both in the same place, so that the homeless and others in need aren’t left with no place to go.

Dorward said community input is important, and the organization is trying to do as many things as possible to make the community kitchen work for the town.

“We’re trying to talk to as many people as possible and we’re trying to incorporate the things that they believe will make this a better project where we can,” he said.

He also said there isn’t much of a precedent for this project, and that the IFC is working to take all the right steps to ensure that they can rezone the property and build the facility they want.

“This is either the first or one of the first types of projects of this variety that has gone through,” he said. “So we’re all trying to work together and figure out what the proper steps are.”

Dorward said he hopes to finish the process and have approval from the board by this summer.

You can see the petition for a change in zoning here.

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