Support Urban Food Production in Kansas City!!
Come to BADSEED, Tuesday, October 20, 6:00-7:30 pm, to discuss proposing City Code changes that will benefit Urban Agriculture.
Hello, all. Most of you have probably heard about the zoning/codes issues that were raised in relationship to Bad Seed Farm. Their situation is settled, for the moment; they can continue operations, the codes inspection division no longer has any possible violations pending with them. There were two issues though that were raised that don’t bode well for other urban farms- one, because they are farming on a lot with a residence, the farm is considered to be a home based business, and therefore Dan and Brooke (or other urban farmers) can’t have employees, volunteers, trainees, or anyone helping at the farm. The second is that no CSA members can come to the farm and pick-up their vegetables, as this is “conducting retail business” on site and that isn’t allowed in a residential neighborhood. Bad Seed can live with this through the rest of the season, but both of those restrictions really work against the benefits and dynamics we are all trying to create with locating farms in city neighborhoods.
Because of the situation with Bad Seed, it has become clear that codes restrictions like these would benefit from some adjustments on the question of urban gardens and farms.
In our meetings with the Urban Planning and Development staff, and with various city council people, they expressed a willingness to work with us to develop codes that more accurately fit the ways that urban food production is developing in Kansas City, MO. They are in a review period looking at the revised codes, so the timing is good for refinements.
The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, Bad Seed Farm, and the Food Policy Coalition for Greater Kansas City are organizing a meeting of any interested community members who would like to have input into this process. You are invited to attend, Tuesday, October 20, 6:00-7:30 pm, at the Bad Seed Market at 1909 McGee, Kansas City, MO.
The goals of the meeting are:
-To look at existing codes that impact urban agriculture,
-To brainstorm about changes that might be useful and supportive of the benefits of urban agriculture, and
-To put together a volunteer committee of Kansas City, MO residents to lead the codes revisions process. This committee would work with KCCUA, the Food Policy Coalition, and city staff to research possibilities, prioritize, draft, and build political support for more urban ag applicable codes.
- Start a process that other municipalities in the metro area can use as inspiration and as a model for creating more urban ag friendly cities.
At the meeting, we will have KCMO Councilwoman Beth Gottstein, Patty Knoll from the Planning and Development Department of the city, and possibly other city representatives.
There are likely to be other issues as well, which is why we especially want those of you who are either currently engaged in or who are considering getting involved in urban agriculture to attend. The models for how we do urban food production in the Kansas City metro area are rapidly evolving; we need to think not only about what we are seeing now, but what we might see in five years, in ten years, or further down the road.
if you have any questions about this, you can contact:
Katherine Kelly, KC Center for Urban Agriculture, 913-831-2444, or katherine@kccua.org
Gretchen Kunkel, Food Policy Coalition of Greater Kansas City, ghkunkel@kc.rr.com
Dan Heryer & Brooke Salvaggio, badseedfarm@hotmail.com
We’re excited about entering into this process and look forward to working with the city to help promote good food production Kansas City, MO and to be what we hope is the first of many cities in our area looking at the benefits of urban food production.
