Zoning Season is especially nasty this year

Since Ohio legislators recently overturned the law that defined pit bulls as dangerous, it appears Mifflin Township Code Enforcement Officer Steven Blake has a lot more time on his hands. Rather than spending his days ticketing the owners of dogs that have never bitten anyone, he’s decided to justify his paycheck by focusing his energies on protecting our fair township from the dreaded scourge of urban agriculture…namely, me.

Steve’s been stalking me for a couple of years now–he even created a faceless Facebook profile for the sole purpose of keeping tabs on me–but in the past couple weeks, he’s stepped up his game. It started with him ordering us to dismantle and remove a compost bin and an old chicken house that I was using as a storage shed. First he said we had only seven days to complete this task or we’d be fined $1,500. Mayda protested (he was telling her–he still has yet to make direct contact with me), saying that seven days was much too short. He said if he saw progress, he’d “work with” us.

As fate would have it, that was the same day I had to go get stitches in my right forefinger after I cut it rehabbing the house at Woodland, where the farm market will be. Following the doctor’s orders to keep my stitches clean and dry slowed my work considerably, but I still apparently got the job done quickly enough for Blake’s satisfaction, as we didn’t get cited. Unfortunately, this busywork assignment set back progress on the house by about a week.

We thought that was the end of it until Wednesday when a sanitarian from the county health department came by and talked with Mayda while Steve watched from his car out in the street. By Mayda’s account, the sanitarian started off by apologizing. He said, “I know you’ve been bombarded with complaints from our department…”

Um, really? Not this year. This is the first contact we’ve had this year.

He was under the impression that somebody had come by earlier in the week. They did, but not to our house. They went next door. We were wondering why the police were talking to our neighbor for so long, and who that other guy was with them.

He went on to say that he understands who we are and what we’re doing, and that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with us farming and that his department has no objection to that. His concern was about the compost being a harborage for rats, despite the fact that he admitted all the properties around us were also likely habitats. Now remember, that compost–over two years old now–was nicely contained in bins until Steve ordered me to dismantle them. I spread some of it on the garlic, but the rest was still in a pile in the yard waiting to be used as starting medium for seedlings. He also expressed interest in whatever composting we might have going on at Woodland. Not that there had been any complaints, given that it’s odorless and nobody can even see it unless they’re trespassing–but he wanted to make sure we had all the necessary information about the best ways to compost. No problem. I emailed him and invited him to send me whatever information he wanted.

Earlier tonight as I was walking back home from Woodland, my neighbor Dan called out to me as I walked passed. He wanted to know why the police were all over the place asking about me, and more specifically, what I had done to piss off Blake. “He’s got a hard on for you, man! You musta done somethin’ to make him mad. He’s out to get you.” Dan went on to describe how Steve’s been asking all the neighbors for any information they can give him about me. “I don’t know, man. He’s just trying to earn a living,” Dan told him.

Steve’s response: “Well, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do that.” Apparently, growing wholesome food is the wrong way in Blake Town. This is consistent with other comments he’s made about me to other neighbors. Collectively, they paint a clear picture. Steven Blake isn’t after me because there’s anything illegal about farming here. He’s after me because he finds urban agriculture personally distasteful, and like all too many law enforcement officers who’ve stayed on the job past their peak, it appears he’s lost the ability to distinguish between his personal prejudices and actual codified legislation. He’s not out to enforce the will of policymakers so much as to “get all the bad guys,” and I’m one of the bad guys because I do something he doesn’t like. As he told one of our former neighbors, “That stuff doesn’t belong in the city.” Except that we’re not in the city. And there’s no rule saying it doesn’t belong here.

It’s not just me–or at least it didn’t used to be. Back in 2007, he went after a man in the eastern portion of Mifflin Township, out closer to the airport. John Moses had 36 chickens on eight contiguous plots totaling over one acre.

…but I should back up here and give you some background on what exactly the rules are. In short, Mifflin Township has none. They default to the county, which in turn defaults to the state. The state says that in unincorporated townships (like Mifflin), agriculture other than a garden attached to a residence is prohibited on plots less than one acre. If you have more than one acre but less than five, you can practice any sort of agriculture you like as long as the township hasn’t passed a resolution against it and you don’t live in a subdivision that’s more than 30% developed.

We called Economic Development and Planning, the county’s zoning department. They said we’re not in a subdivision. Okay, then…no subdivision, so that section doesn’t apply. We’ve got more than an acre. When Mayda called the township offices to ask whether there were any resolutions against keeping chickens, the lady on the other end said no. When she heard how much land we have, she said, “If I had that much land, I’d have horses!” And if you have more than five acres, it doesn’t matter what resolutions the township passes. You’re completely exempt under state law.

I did some reading on this. There’s a good body of case law reiterating the state’s philosophy that growing food and caring for animals are Good Things and the state wants municipalities to stay off farmers’ backs about it. In Meerland Dairy v. Ross Township, 2008, the township wasn’t even able to prevent a dairy CAFO from opening where they didn’t want it. According to ORC 3767.13, your farm can even be loud and stinky as long as it doesn’t substantially harm the public health, safety, or welfare.

So when Steve sent Joe Bailey (Franklin County Economic Development and Planning) to tell me a couple years ago that I wasn’t allowed to have chickens at Woodland, that wasn’t true. When a sanitarian from the county health department told me a couple years ago that although chickens were allowed, I’d still have to follow local noise ordinances, that was also less than accurate. This, friends, is why you never call enforcement agencies to find out what you’re allowed to do. Sometimes they don’t know, and sometimes they’ll just flat-out lie to you to push their own agendas.

Getting back to Mr. Moses…I said that the land on which he had the chickens was over one acre, and it was. As you can see above, this exempts him from the prohibition against agriculture on less than one acre. He’s allowed to have them. But according to Joe Bailey, who attended a meeting of the Township Trustees to testify against Mr. Moses, the land was divided into separate lots, and since each lot was individually less than one acre, Moses shouldn’t be allowed to keep the chickens.

Does that sound like somebody who’s genuinely trying to enforce the intentions of the elected lawmakers, or does that sound like someone trying to twist the letter of the law to serve him in his own personal vendetta?

In addition to telling me about Steve’s outrageous allegations against me–that I was dumping chemicals along my fence, and that I stole pine needles out of a lady’s yard–Dan told me that Steve wants Dan to show him the gas company easement through our Woodland property. Steve apparently shares Dan’s mistaken belief that utility right-of-ways through private property are actually open to the public. That couldn’t be less true. Even the gas company isn’t allowed back there except for inspection, installation, operation, maintenance, and removal of their gas lines, just like it says in the agreement between John B. Denune and the Ohio Fuel Supply Co., signed in 1906. (Columbia Gas gave us a copy when they wanted to cut down trees last year.) Steve’s plan is for Dan to act as tour guide to “Blake and someone from the EPA” back through the gas line right-of-way so they can probe deeper into my property than the view from the street allows.

Do you get this? There ARE NO SUBSTANTIATED COMPLAINTS. If they had genuine probable cause to believe I was committing a crime, they could just get a search warrant and walk right through the front gate. But they have NOTHING. They’re planning a freaking fishing expedition in the blind hope of finding something incriminating, and they’re sneaking in by way of what they think is a public route since they know they’re not allowed on my property without my permission.

So that leaves the question of whether I should just sit back and let them do it, hoping they’ll give up this witch hunt when they don’t find anything, or wait for them to cite me and get any evidence thrown out as the fruit of an illegal search if they do find a violation, or if I should try to catch them in the act and call the Sheriff, since Mifflin Police Chief Pocock apparently can’t be counted on to keep his own officer on the right side of the law.

Come on, Steve…I had a public tour back in October. You could’ve signed up for that and I’d have given you a free lunch–Bourbon chicken on rice, made from our own chickens. People took pictures of the place and posted them online. I’ve had a couple reporters out, too, and they’ve taken pictures. Take a look in 200 Columbus or the Spring issue of Edible Columbus when it comes out if you want to see what the place looks like. Or just wait ’til the store opens. We’ll be giving tours routinely, then–probably once a month if not more often.

And what’s he looking for anyway? There are code violations at Woodland clearly visible from the street. I’m already taking measures to remedy these. We got the roof fixed. We got the upstairs soffits and fascia fixed. I’ll be doing the downstairs ones shortly. Presently, I’m gutting the moldy old plaster from inside so I can put up new drywall. Once that’s done, I’ll be replacing windows. We’ll need to finish the siding and gutters at some point, too. I want this place done so we can move in in time for my apprentice to move into the Paul Drive place once her house sells, and for us to open the store in May.

I have some building materials stockpiled for repairs on the house, and for building a new greenhouse, chicken houses, and fences. There’s some scrap metal lying around that the soffit contractor left behind (that I’ll recycle as soon as I change my truck’s radiator). There’s the old fire truck that even the scrap metal thieves couldn’t move, and there are a bunch of logs that the gas company left behind when they cut down the trees on their easement. Other than these things, all of which will be remedied as time allows, I don’t know what they could possibly cite me for.

In various interviews with the press, Steve has been quoted as saying that he wants old houses fixed up to improve the neighborhood. That’s what I’m doing. He had a hand in putting together MORPC’s Land Use Plan for Mifflin and Clinton Townships, and everything I’m doing is consistent with that plan. The plan called for a farmers market at Northern Lights that takes EBT. I’m putting in a farm market, and hope to eventually accept EBT. They want houses repaired. I’m doing that. They want economic development. I’m trying to take a couple junk properties and turn them into a prosperous business. The plan was designed by MORPC. MORPC selected me for appointment to the Franklin County Local Food Council. They want environmental sustainability to be a feature of the neighborhood. You don’t get any more sustainable than what I’m doing. 

Speaking of which…the EPA? Are you kidding? Because ORGANIC FARMS are such an obvious threat to the environment, right? Maybe Dan was confused and meant the Health Department?

Oh, geez…something just clicked. Dan said something about “chemicals” I poured along my fence line. In…I think it might have been 2006 or so, I planted some peas and beans along our front fence at Paul Drive and fertilized them with my own mix of seed meal, bone meal, and lime. Wow. That’s really reaching.

You’d never guess that we bought this place because there was a minivan in the yard across the street flipped over on its roof when we first came to look at the house. We figured with a community standard like that, we’d have no problems. just raising some chickens and growing some vegetables.

And here’s the real kicker: right now, I only have 40-some hens. I wasn’t able to buy any more. And since keeping the truck working has been eating up so much of the gift card money this year, I haven’t bought meat bird chicks yet. When we do get them, it won’t be in the same numbers as previously, since we’ll be slaughtering them on-farm to take advantage of a state exemption until we can afford a Retail Food Establishment license. But an elderly man in the neighborhood who bought his first hens from me told me today that he’s ordering 50 layer chicks. I don’t know if he’s even got an acre. The guy who runs the neighborhood IGA is ordering 25.

It isn’t just me anymore. City Folks Farm Shop is opening on High Street in a few days to supply the many people like me who are farming in town. It’s a movement, and it’s going to be around for a while. Steve can spend the rest of his career chasing his tail, sneaking around and smearing my name, or he can realize we have the same goal and get on board. If he just leaves me alone and stops derailing my progress by giving me assignments with deadlines, he’ll see the progress he says he wants.

That’s why his zeal to nail me for something seems so irrational. It causes me to wonder if he has some kind of ties to a developer, and his real aim is to drive us off the property altogether rather than see it fixed up. The previous owner of Woodland said she turned down an offer from a developer, and the land use plan calls for our property to have a greater density of housing units per acre than it presently does. It looks like the intention was to turn the west portion of our acreage into a cul-de-sac or a small apartment complex, with the eastern portion set aside as a nature preserve.

Oh, and since he’s no doubt going to see this and also no doubt going to try to tell me I can’t open a farm market in a “residential zone” or do half the other stuff I talked about, here’s some reading material:

Ohio Department of Agriculture Farm Market Fact Sheet

Ohio Attorney General Opinion No. 2002-029 (2002) and Hambrecht v. Whiting, 1983

ORC 519.21 “Powers not conferred on township zoning commission by chapter.” Especially (C).