Should Decatur Allow “Front Yard Farmer’s Markets”?
Decatur Metro | December 15, 2011 | 11:49 amA few weeks back, The Atlantic Cities blog featured a story about Los Angeles’ new city ordinance that allows backyard growers to sell their fruits, vegetables, honey, etc in their front yards and at “neighborhood farmers markets”. In the article, changes to the ordinance were couched in hopes that lifting such restrictions would help elevate the “food deserts” of South L.A., where grocery stores are great distances away, accessible only by car.
But is the hope of providing an brief oasis in a food desert the only reason to take another look at the ordinances in our cities and communities that restrict the sale of items on private property?
Right now in Decatur, you can’t sell food you’re growing in your backyard on a small foldout table in your driveway. That means that everything from a 10 year-old’s lemonade stand to Allison’s freshly slaughtered bison chuck wagon parked on her driveway is illegal. Why? Like most everything else that’s illegal in your residential area, it’s the result of concerns about noise and traffic, which put these ordinances on the books back in the residential zoning hey-day.
But in a year when Decatur is writing its own “Environmental Sustainability Plan” and has put in place a task force to specifically reevaluate our zoning ordinances, perhaps a look at the restriction that demands the only way to make money on your R-60 lot is a “home-based business” is worthy of a second-look. (According to the City Planner Amanda Thompson, selling fruits, vegetables and imaginary bison doesn’t qualify.)
Perhaps silence is still king in our peaceable single-family ‘hoods, but even so, it seems a bit overly dramatic to ban front yard farmer’s markets outright in order to deal with occasional, slight increases in noise and traffic. L.A. requires that certain regulations are met in order for a market to receive city approval. Decatur has recently established guidelines for community gardens. Why not small-scale farmer’s markets?
Decatur is a relatively dense city (physically, not mentally-speaking – in this particular case!), but is still quite residential outside its downtown areas. The sheer lack of available growing land is demonstrated daily through the community’s ongoing efforts to find land to accommodate the growing desire to harvest local food. Neighborhood gardens have proliferated in the city’s floodplains and we had to go outside our own limits to find land to support it’s first multi-acre farm.
Meanwhile, the proliferation of R-60 land is limited to growing food that can only be consumed by you or your bartering neighbor down the street with the chicken flock. Our ongoing struggle over what you can grow or raise on your coveted Decatur R-60 land is well documented, but what you can SELL is an untold story of bupkis.
Now, I’m not pretending that the backyard growers across this city don’t already have informal trade/bartering networks in place. Perhaps it’s as simple as “Please neighbor, take some of this zucchini off my hands. I can’t eat one more slice of zucchini bread!” to slightly more formal arenas of online trading forums. To a large extent the system has found ways around the existing ordinance that bans selling fruits and vegetables from your back yard.
But that’s exactly the point. Should the total ban still exist to navigate around at all?
In this modern day and age where communication is king and an informal Friday morning market is easily publicized and/or reported to city officials for having exceeded acceptable noise/traffic levels, such a ban seems like it may have gotten too big for its britches. We’re a more flexible society today and all of these hard and fast zoning ordinances should now be looked upon in this new light.
Therefore, at this particular moment, I’m of the general opinion that Decatur’s Sustainability Commission and the Zoning Task Force should find a couple minutes and take a look at the “home-based business” sections of the zoning ordinance to think about whether any are counter-intuitive to many of the cited agricultural goals residents have spelled out in the 2010 Strategic Plan.
I honestly don’t know if there’s ANY pent-up demand in Decatur for weekly front yard farm-stands from backyard growers or harvest-time neighborhood markets at the edges of the various floodplain community gardens. And maybe this is about more than just front yard markets, and actually touches on broader questions and expectations of our residential vs. commercial vs. public spaces. But regardless, we won’t ever know if we’re missing out on a lost opportunity here if we simply continue to employ an outright ban in fear of the occasional noise and traffic – which goes hand-in-hand with any successful community event – without at least a brief moment of reconsideration.
It’s about time we regulate lemonade stands! When MY children sell lemonade, I run out and buy a sack of lemons and we get out the underused lemon squeezer and get seeds and acidic lemon juice all over the kitchen while I prove some point about true lemonade. MEANWHILE, other kids are selling the powdered kind and their parents are sitting on the front porch relaxing. I’m willing to accept the sale of lemonade reconstituted from cans of frozen lemonade but only if the sign clearly indicates “Made from Concentrate”.
That was great!
Tell me about it! Mine did organic Meyer lemonade in expensive biodegradable cups. . . .
Oooooooo! You win! I worship your superior wholesome parenting!
Wholeheartedly agree! I’m even OK with Country Time powdered crap if properly labelled. However, we must be very clear on the fact that Crystal Light is NOT lemonade. My mother tried to pull that on me once. ONCE….
Shouldn’t anyone selling from their front yard pay a sales tax on their proceeds? And shouldn’t they need pay a business tax or permit fee. Big Brother (or is it big bother) wants to Know,
Yes, but that is a different issue than whether zoning would allow such an activity to take place at all.
Or the buyer needs to submit their ‘use tax’ to the state. Just like we all are doing with our Amazon purchases. Right? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Shhh… Amazon had a colossal fight with California on this topic, and many other states were paying attention.
I’ve bought fresh, black-market backyard eggs from a neighbor on multiple occasions. However, even under thread of waterboarding, I won’t give up their name.
Power to the Produce Underground!
If you are going to allow people to have those God awful “Garage sales’ in their front yard, then you should let folks sell something actually useful (and potentially healthy).
But.. but… another person’s trash is someone else’s treasure!
I’d love to walk down the street and pick up some fruit from a neighbor. Good way to meet my neighbors, help them financially and get fresh organic produce!
Just make sure your neighbors don’t say it is ‘organic’, because then they will have the Feds coming down on them. Bad enough the local and state governments with zoning and health codes, but say ‘organic’ and its game over my friend. Black helicopters and all.
I would be a concerned about what those veggies had been growing in. Eggs, too, for that matter. I’m phobic about food poisoning, having nearly killed myself once on my own cooking.
Toml, just ask to see. Your neighbor will most likely give you access to the garden or coop and you’ll be able to see for yourself. This is not an option you’ll get from your local supermarket. The people I know who grow veggies for their own consumption do so BECAUSE they are persnickety about food quality. Odds are they are growing things organically, or close. Could be they are they will sell their surplus veggies/eggs for fun and to break even, because they are out of freezer space, etc. Freshness, carbon footprint…. it’s all good.
If you want to be horrified, find one of those documentaries where they show how commercial egg operations run, and how many times they can label/relabel the eggs as “fresh.” I’ll take eggs from a neighbor, little poop flecks and all, over a supermarket egg any day. Same for produce. At least I can see the chickens AND gardener are healthy and clean and see the surrounding environment.
Sorry you got food poisoning.
I would simply ask the seller for a quick tour of his or her garden or chicken coop. That and a couple of conversational questions about their growing practices (“Hey, do you use horse or cow manure?”) should do the trick. I imagine that word would get out in the neighborhood pretty quick if someone used unsavory or unpopular growing practices. It’s all about getting out and actually talking to the neighbors – a lost art in these gadgety times, I’m afraid.
You are correct. We eat our own, locally-produced produce and enjoy my cousin’s locally-raised eggs. And one day a freshly-picked, raw pod of okra will probably do me in.
Unless you also raise your own pufferfish. In that case, my money would be on some Fugu sashimi doing you in.
We have a winner! When preparing mahi mahi filets remember to wash the knife before preparing the fresh garden salad.
If we don’t allow Front Yard Farmer’s Markets the citizens will be forced to steal veggies right out of their neighbors’ gardens. Chaos!!
I am more concerned about food in the normal supply chain having problems than my neighbors… Considering all of the E. coli scares from agribusiness, I trust my neighbors far more.
Ooo yes!
And my happy go lucky neighbors Wally and Marty can sell the veggies that are picked by my and other neighborhood kids.
I can see just see their logo in my mind’s eye – a bg cheerful smile!
And they can call their little shop of veggies…. WalMart!
Not sure our prices would be competitive with existing retail outlets. I think “all in” this years’ crop of tomatoes cost us about $12 a pound to produce.
Wow – I’m impressed you know how much you tomatoes cost to grow. Pray tell, are you using a cool spreadsheet?
It really isnt that hard to calculate. Couple of tomato plants: $5. Potting/Top Soil and/or fertilizer: $5. Number of tomatoes not eaten by squirrels or (my personal favorite) stolen off the plant by passersby: 2.
What about the cost of the land? Of financing the land? Of your time? Sorry…my mind went off down lots of rabbit trails when I read this. Hence my imagining the need for Excel. Carry on…
What exactly is going on with the zoning review board? Every time it’s mentioned here, the link goes back to that same original article? There’s so much potential for them to make some very good changes (including the ones we’re discussing here). What’s their deal?
They’re currently meeting, researching success stories in comparable cities and breaking up into subcommittees focused on specific issues (parking, downtown development, neighborhood issues, urban ag, etc.). I don’t know their timetable but at some point they’ll be formulating draft recommendations and presenting them publicly for review, comment and revision.
Maybe the “bicycle man” on Adair will give up his eggplants and bell peppers!
I hope he never moves his bicycles. That man is a hero.
Sounds like a fun & enlightened idea. As long as people are selling what they are growing/making (not a 40 oz.. out of a cooler and ciggies) what could be the harm? How much demand and noise could really be created by people out for fresh squash on a Saturday morning?
Has anyone tried this and been cited for it?
I remember seeing this all the time when growing up in Florida–people trying to unload their surfeit of citrus and mangoes from a table in their front yard.
I would love to unburden my Decatur neighbors of their bumper crops.
You can have my ENTIRE crop of sweetgum balls. For FREE!
I would like to see this allowed, under the condition that the produce was grown inside the City limits (will we need the food police, who knows?).
I also would like to see the loosening of the rules on residential property allowing accessory dwellings (i.e. garage apartments) to have full kitchens and all the other amenities of a residence. This would allow aging parents to live with their children and not in the same dwelling. I suspect this need will become more common in the near future.
Oh, and selling of imaginary bison, that should be allowed too.
I’m swooning at the thought of all the imaginary profits I would reap.