Seeds planted in discussions about urban agriculture in Kansas City may finally be bearing fruit.
At a meeting of the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council yesterday, Bad Seed Farm -- an organic farm at 95th and State Line run by husband and wife Daniel Heryer and Brooke Salvaggio -- was granted a zoning change on a 13.5 acre piece of property, and Councilman John Sharp introduced an ordinance to change the zoning and development code.
"We have worked for months with city staff, community members, farmers and gardeners to update the codes to better reflect current trends in urban agriculture and local foods," said Katherine Kelly, director of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture. "We hope to have the changes in place in time to impact summer and fall plantings and harvests."
Sharp's proposed ordinance, co-sponsored by Mayor Mark Funkhouser,
Councilman Bill Skaggs and Councilwoman Melba Curls, would allow urban
farming in residential neighborhoods and put in place a system where
farmers could apply for special or temporary use permits to sell crops
on-site.
The council also voted 11-0
(Councilwoman Beth Gottstein wasn't on the floor for the vote) to change
the zoning on the 13.5 acre site at the intersection of Bennington Avenue
and East 55th Street (just west of Blue Parkway) from light residential
to agricultural. Although Bad Seed will continue to farm at 95th and
State Line this year, that will be the future location of the farm.
In July
2009, Bad Seed Farm was cited by the city for three code
violations. The violations were later dismissed after the farmers agreed
to suspend on-site pick-up of produce and dismiss its volunteers for the
rest of the growing season. But the discussions between Bad Seed and
city officials highlighted gray areas in the development code concerning
what was allowed when it came to urban farming.
Activists,
farmers and residents met with representatives of the city to discuss
the state of urban agriculture at a public
meeting at Bad Seed Farm on October 20, 2009. A steering committee
of residents and city officials was formed to look at the language of
the current planning and development code. The committee has been
meeting for the past six months to research what other cities are doing
and reach out to neighborhood organizations to address concerns and
raise awareness about urban agriculture.
"This has been a group
of hard-working, diligent people from all areas of the community. The
idea was to listen to neighborhood concerns and also explain how urban
agriculture can provide some real benefits to neighborhoods," said Patty
Noll, the steering committee representative from the city's planning
and development department.
The proposed ordinance is meant to define what is acceptable under the development code for the cultivation and sale of produce in residential neighborhoods. It doesn't address livestock and applies solely to crops.
It would also allow community supported agriculture programs to be the principal use of a parcel of land. Shareholders could both pick up produce and volunteer on-site. If a farmer wanted to sell produce, he or she would be required to get a special-use permit in single-family residential districts or a temporary-use permit in other residential districts.
"The mayor and the City Council have made a commitment to greening
Kansas City. Updating zoning regulations to allow for more urban
agriculture is a natural step for the community to take," said Kelly.
The ordinance will next go before the City Planning Commission and the Planing and Zoning Committee. If it's approved by both bodies, it will return to the City Council for a vote, likely sometime in late April.
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This story is only telling one side of the story.
These people were raising livestock on their property at 95thSt and that is what originally got them in trouble with neighbors. There was also no mention of this girl's advertising of on site classes for "human waste composting". All that didn't sit well with the neighbors who are concerned about property values and quality of living in their quarter million dollar homes.
because of their actions now we will have "more government" and "more permits". I think the reason some council members agreed to this is because they saw dollar signs in a city dieing from lack of revenue and they wanted to quiet down members of the West Bannister Homes Assoc.
Now the old man, who wasn't bothering anyone will smells or having workers coming and going for months on end, just selling tomatoes from his backyard with a cardboard sign outside of his house will have to get a permit (probably one for the sign too) that will likely cost just about as much as he makes.
All this from naive idealists who thought it would be cool to keep livestock in a neighborhood of upper value homes. Now they are moving a typically bad neighborhood next to an industrial area (no wonder the city approved it, they may now get revenue from that property) and others who never had problems will now have to pay permits and deal with more government because of their idealism.
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