Burlington homeowners Michael Rooney and Susan Dorn built greenhouse-style hoop houses in their front yard two years ago to extend the growing season. Instead of harvesting salad greens in May or June, the couple now picks knee-high Swiss chard, kale and red mustard in early March.
“We want to control our own food as much as we can,” says Rooney, who lives on South Willard Street near Champlain College. “Sustainable living. We live in Vermont. Grow your own food. All that stuff —– we believe in all of it.”
But last month, the couple got a notice from the Burlington Code Enforcement Office that their gardening structures were a code violation and would have to come down to avoid penalties. The code office received an anonymous complaint anonymous complaints — three of them — about the homemade hoop houses.
Rooney says he was told that, under city zoning regulations, hoop houses qualify as “stable structures” and that the couple’s raised garden beds qualify as “retaining walls” — both of which require permits from city hall. So does a two-foot-high metal fence that lines the garden to keep out hungry rabbits.
“This is ridiculous,” Rooney says on a recent spring day.
Rooney and Dorn are master gardeners, certified through classes at the University of Vermont Extension School and hours of apprenticing. Their front yard on South Willard Street, a well-heeled part of town with stately colonial homes, has been turned into an urban gardener’s paradise — with bountiful gardens, peach, apple and pear trees, and strawberry beds alongside the steps that lead up a slope to their front door.
But to at least one neighbor, the hoop houses are an out-of-place eyesore. Rooney says he doesn’t know who made the complaint. He called one neighbor to inquire about it, but says he never heard back.
Dorn is the founder and CEO of RingMaster Software and Rooney is a principal at Spring Above Marketing. The couple built the hoop houses in 2010 using wood, electrical conduit and plastic sheeting. They went on the front lawn, he says, because that’s the only sunny part of his yard.
Rooney has taken his case to city councilors, the mayor’s office and members of Burlington’s Urban Agriculture Task Force, a panel established by the city council to address just these sorts of town-farm clashes. Next Wednesday, he’s meeting with Code Enforcement Director Bill Ward to show him the structures and see if a compromise can be worked out to keep them.
Ward explains that, under zoning regs, anything that remains on a property for longer than 30 days is considered a structure. He said the letter Rooney and Dorn received was a warning, not a violation that would come with fines. Warning letters give property owners a period of time — ordinarly 10 days, but in this case longer — to either take down the structure, apply for a permit or appeal the code enforcement officer’s decision.
“When we receive a complaint we’re required to investigate,” Ward says. “It’s not at the top of our priority list to go around and check people’s yards for [code violations.]”
Rooney and Dorn haven’t decided whether they’ll try to keep the structures by seeking permits — which cost $90 each and could require a public hearing before the Development Review Board. Rooney, for one, worries that if he loses, he could “set a precedent for everyone else in this town” that would come back to haunt other urban gardeners in Burlington.
“We grow food because it’s part of our lifestyle,” Rooney says. “I don’t want to have people who really can’t afford [a permit] stuck with” an adverse city decision on urban gardening structures. Rooney understands that some might find his roadside hoop houses out of place in the neighborhood, but says the front-yard garden could stand as a “nice image of Vermont — that you could actually grow all your food here.”
“This is Vermont, for goodness sake,” Rooney adds. “We’re all about sustainable living.”
Photo credit: Andy Bromage
This article appears in Home & Garden Issue.
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I can understand neighbors complaining, as they are arguably a tad on the messy-looking side, but that’s easy to remedy with some tweaks to the greenhouse/hoophouse design… Still they are for more appealing than the hordes of gas guzzling, metal cars/autos parked along and roving the streets of Burlington, including the streets of that neighborhood. And the greenhouses are far more appealing than the acres of pavement and concrete lining the neighborhood. Ultimately, this kind of activity should be encouraged by our city councils, not discouraged. Let the people grow food!
WOW lame folks…
Shame on you Vermont and all you for downing a sustainable living set of folks that get harassed like this.
-DON’T PERMIT, SLAP FEES, WASTE FOLKS TIME, & HURT VT THE IMAGE…*Grow up Nay Sayers and lend a hand to make it better looking if that’s the issue!
Too bad Vermont’s right-to-farm law doesn’t apply equally to urban areas… this is exactly the kind of thing it protects.
We have a right to Farm Law here in Vermont which guarantees everyone and anyone the right to far. Perhaps they should look into that. their neighbors should get a life and leave them alone. As it stand right now cities are a parasite on the rural countryside. they bring in everything they need for the most part and export waste. Burlington is doing a better job on that than most cities these days but still the energy input necessary to keep a city going is way our of balance. Cities need to start providing as much of their own resources as possible to take the strain off the land. Urban gardens a a very good way to start along with hydroponic towers that recycle waste water and grow food and an electrogrid to electrify every roof possible and lots of solar hot water and other technologies to reduce external energy inputs. People should never resist when their neighbor takes a step towards making life better for everyone. they seem like really nice people. Ill bet instead of complaining if the offended nit pickers went over and said I’d like to help you and maybe get some of my own food from this thing you;re doing and offered a little money to dress the place up a little and some o of their time thing would really start to buzz in that neighborhood and more people would get on board and do similar things making life better for everyone which is what zoning is supposed to do.
This makes me sad. No wonder creativity is on the decline in our poor old country, if in a so-called most livable city one can’t even put up a plant growing structure without being called out by some silly uptight neighbors and an over-reactive city government.
Ward explains: “anything that remains on a property for longer than 30 days is considered a structure” — your tree, for example, or your baby, or you….
A city council with any sense would rescind this sort of officious bureaucratting and allow for a more Vermontly mode of living.
People should learn how to sustain food supply …………. in the future that may be great set of skills to have.
I ride my bike past this house all the time. I love those greenhouses. Code Enforcement has too much free time. In fact, what does Bill Ward and Code Enforcement even do? Give people a hard time, send out fines, annoy people? Sounds like a wonderful job. Miro, are you listening?
This is a classic case of NIMBYism. As a neighbor, I would much rather see sustainable gardening structures than stockade fences. Why would anyone complain about tax-paying, responsible homeowners making the best possible use of your land? I think this couple’s greenhouse growing is innovative and inspiring. If I don’t like the garden arches my neighbors erected, or the way they screened their porch, I simply respect their difference in taste and let it go. And the whole issue on seeking permits has become nothing more than a greedy source of revenue for cities and towns. Aren’t their more troublesome issues to worry about, people?!
I wish code would start busting people for wasting space with a lawn. Nah..just kidding. I wish we lived in a world where the only interference from the government in private matters would be in cases of real and life threatening danger. “Step away from the chard and nobody gets hurt!”
Andy, you did a great job with the story. One correction I would like
to add is that there was only one complaint, of which the complainant
checked on the status 3 times. We asked Code Enforcement for the name
of the complainant to see if we could address the situation directly but
the complainant asked to remain anonymous.
As a response to DirtWorks, yes Vermont does have right to farm laws. There are minimum requirements to call yourself a farm though. To declare ourselves a farm we will have to file a biz and farm management plan with the Dept of Agriculture. I’ve tried to find information on how to do this from websites all over the Vermont Ag community and found no information on how. (Are you listening Ag community?). We would also need to show $1,000 of farm income.
Anybody like to buy some heirloom tomato starts? We better get busy trying to earn that $1,000. I’m planning on growing gray shallots too. There are extremely hard to get and are the creme de la creme of shallots. Anything else anybody would like?
And then we will have to petition and get approval from the Secretary of Agriculture to keep our “hoop houses” two feet from the property line.
Here is a link to a series of videos and free PDF downloads to build your own greenhouse out of PVC piping: http://www.garden.org/howtovid…
Paul Simon
If you grow what would be $1,000 of marketable goods that your family sustains itself with, would that qualify as the income? Do you have to turn it into $US for it to be income? It’s unfortunate that subjective values such as home aesthetic can get in the way of sustainable living. If there is no threat to the “public welfare” then it shouldn’t be an issue. I don’t feel that speculative property value is a matter for the government to interfere in. A home’s value is in that it can provide for you. I feel that your public welfare is being offended to a higher degree.
Good luck with your campaign Susan.
Champlain College Complained. “Annonamous?” Get real. Rooney is right in that “This IS Vermont” but many of the employees at Champlain College have moved here from places like NJ and NY and they don’t get it. For them Ward Six Burlington is just a place for the college. Sustainable living isn’t within their comprehension. Let them grow food.
Hecklers go project your pain somewhere else ! I love your greenhouses. You go girl 😉
horseshit!
I’d love to get a look at a Burlington street where everyone built whatever gardening structure they wished. It would look like a Mumbai with Volvos. Actually, yes, let them all build whatever they want. And let’s do away with zoning while we’re at it.
“Ward explains that, under zoning regs, anything that remains on a property for longer than 30 days is considered a structure”
Maybe you could move it to your neighbors on Day 31, move it back on Day 32 for another 30 days.
I was going to put a small raised bed in front, because there is too much shade in back. Now I am afraid to put the work into it for fear someone will complain and I will have to take it down. UGH!!!!!
I’m sure the folks at Code Enforcement would welcome you to learn more about the work they do. They’re a group of hard working people who are under appreciated. When someone makes a complaint (in this case an anonymous neighbor) they have to investigate it. If you love the greenhouses, why not support changes to city codes to allow them? That’s more productive than putting down an entire city department for operating as it is supposed to.
I want to be on the side of Rooney/Dorn, but it’s hard to not see both sides of this. What they’re doing with this space is inspiring but where do you draw the line? Let’s say the neighbor next door to these folks wanted to turn their front yard into an operation for something less innocuous. I wonder if Rooney/Dorn would extend the same hands-off courtesy they want to a neighbor who wanted to process bio-diesel in their front yard, or who wanted the ability to park cars on their front lawn as a favor to friends?
As citizens of this city we have a responsibility to either live by the codes in place or to work to change those codes. In this case, if it were just fruit trees and gardens or it was tucked away in the backyard it would be hard to complain, but you build a pair of greenhouses of this size in your front yard and it’s going to attract some attention, perhaps some attention that you don’t want.
There’s an easy answer to that: would the neighbors smell the bio-diesel or otherwise be actually touched or affected by it? If not — if there’s zero pollution — than they should be allowed to do it. If they aren’t polluting any more than all the cars driving by, well then, you shouldn’t discriminate against their fair use of their property. If they are polluting *more* than the ambient pollution levels, they are trespassing and should be required to cease to a level that respects their neighbors’ rights to their own property.
There should be a mind your own business law.
This is a case of an idea being beautiful (and important) enough to disqualify relevance of questions of physical beauty. This is a beautiful and important actuality! To farm one’s own land! I hope that we across America can expand our definitions of beauty to include abundance and efficiency! And that we can love our neighbor’s efforts to live well and richly.
Oh, shut up Burlington and let people do with their property what they will. You let lousy bums set up camp on Church St., but you don’t let these people have a garden to grow their own food on their own property. GET REAL!
Yeah, so what? So why do I see people planting huge blow up Santas and blow up Frosty the Snowmen in their front yards at Christmas time. What if I hate Christmas and don’t want to see them? What if I’d rather see a lovely garden growing in someones yard.
Latest News: We discovered who our complainant was thru the Freedom of Information Laws–our next door neighbor with the perfect lawn, who denied doing so. That neighbor has just moved.
In a city it can be hard to have your cake an eat it too. Country mouse doesn’t feel bad for city mice….lol.
Elections have consequences.
If city liberals hate regulation, stop electing people whose politics require government intervention in everyone’s lives.
Meanwhile, if you want to farm, move to the country.