[LMich]

It's taken three years, but it looks like Detroit is finally going to put in place its urban farming ordinance, and this one is more generous and liberal than originally proposed:

Large-scale farming projects in Detroit might be under way by next spring

By John Gallagher | Detroit Free Press

October 8, 2012

...

The draft Urban Agriculture Ordinance is expected to go before the City Council's advisory City Planning Commission later this month, and the council itself would then take up the ordinance in January.

Written with the advice of nonprofit community gardeners and advocates of large-scale farming, the ordinance puts no size limits on urban farms, and it permits the sale of produce through many avenues, from farm stands on the property to farmers markets and directly to public or private entities, either retail or wholesale.

Proposed projects like Hantz Farms and RecoveryPark would still have to win approval from city planners, and may be required to conduct soil testing or other measures. But they would have the zoning ordinance on their side rather than against them.

...

"It's broad enough to allow our work to move forward along with all the existing gardens," Mike Score, president of Hantz Farms, said late last month. "My impression is that a very broad range of interests were responded to, so it's well-written."

"I think it's very comprehensive," said Gary Wozniak, president and CEO of the proposed RecoveryPark farming project. "I think it covers all the bases in terms of the different sizes and different types of communities these things can go into."

...

The draft ordinance does not contain language allowing farm animals, but Kathryn Lynch Underwood, a City Planning Commission staffer heading up an urban agriculture study committee, said the city will revisit that next year once the initial ordinance is passed.

Eventually, she said, planners would like to allow for chickens, rabbits and bees to be raised in the city -- all of which are being done anyway, although without the blessing of an ordinance.

Besides dealing with farm animals in a later revision, the ordinance could be reopened as other concerns arise, she added.

...

The ordinance is pretty surprising as the parties that are now praising it were fuming when it was originally brought up because it was drawn so narrow and restructive.