| The rule changes, before the goats were nixed, covered "simplifying the process for approving farmers' markets on private property, developing a new use call the retail farm, modify the regulations for the keeping of chickens, goats and bees in single-family developments and clean-up items for community gardens."
Farmers Markets
Currently: Farmers' markets on public property must get a special events permit. These cost $150 per year and they take 60 days to approve. Farmers' markets on private property require a conditional use permit and an $8000 deposit. They take six months or longer to process and these markets are only allowed in a limited number of commercial zones.
Proposed New Rules: The city proposed two kinds of farmers markets.
Daily Farmers' Market Stand
The stand would be allowed in all commercial zones except for the commercial parking zone and also be permitted in the IL 3-1 industrial zone. On private property, the owner's permission is needed, no additional parking is required, and no parking can be displaced. No value added or prepared foods can be sold.
On public rights-of-way, permission of the fronting property owner is required, and so is a certificate of insurance. No additional parking is required, no value added or prepared foods may be sold, and the location is limited to 5 feet by 16 feet with a minimum clearance of 4 feet in the right-of-way and clear access to loading areas and other access points.
Weekly Farmers Market
This applies to markets that are held one day per week per location. On private property, the farmers market would be allowed as a limited use in all commercial zones except the commercial parking zone and in the IL 3-1 industrial zone. The market must obtain the permission of the property owner. No onsite cooking is allowed, there must be access to a restroom. For parking, no additional spaces are required but any disabled spaces that are temporarily displaced must be temporarily replaced. Also, only a minimal number of parking spaces may be converted to the farmers' market.
Retail Farms
This category is all new. A retail farm would be defined as combining farming and grocery on one site. They will be permitted as a limited use in commercial regional, commercial office, community commercial, and industrial IL 3-1 zones, provided the area is no greater than 4 acres, no pesticides are used, 75 percent of products sold are grown onsite, and all storage, equipment, and repair areas are completely enclosed, secured, and located outside of all required setbacks.
(Note: "A 'limited use' is a use that is allowed without getting a permit, but you have to obey a specific set of regulations in the municipal code specifically geared toward that use.")
Parking must be provided at the rate of one parking space per employee for the farm area and one space per 1000 square feet of the retail area. If the farm is developed as a "Pick your own" retail farm, it must be ADA accessible.
(Note: "ADA is the acronym for the American with Disabilities Act, the federal law that specifies, in very technical terms, standards that public areas must follow to ensure access that those with disabilities can use them. One of the standards is that sidewalks be at least four feet wide.")
Comments: A registered dietitian spoke up asking that farmers markets are not limited to Monday through Friday as they are in the current regulations. Also, she wants the ban on cooking at markets to be removed since the vendors will have their food handler's licenses and will comply with all regulations.
Chickens
Current Laws: San Diego residents can keep up to 25 fowl or rabbits provided they are 50 feet from any residence, including their own. This requirement makes it illegal for many San Diegans to keep chickens as their property is not large enough.
New Laws: Chickens will be allowed in single-family zones, on lots developed with single-family dwellings, in community gardens, and in retail farms. Roosters are banned. Up to 5 hens may be kept if the coop is kept outside of the required setbacks. However, up to 15 hens may be kept if the coop is 15 feet away from the property line, and up to 25 hens may be kept if the coop is 50 feet from the property line.
The coop must be predator proof, easily cleaned, water tight, and ventilated. It must provide sufficient space for movement. The enclosure (chicken run) must be predator proof, easily cleaned, and provide 10 square feet per chicken.
Comments: One person expressed concern that multi-family homes would not be allowed to keep chickens. She said if the homeowner and all of the people in the home agreed to keep chickens, she couldn't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do so.
I also spoke up saying that 10 feet per bird in a chicken run is a lot of space and likely more than is needed. Also, I asked them to expand this ruling to allow ducks, which can also be kept for eggs, and which - unlike chickens - will gladly eat snails and slugs. I added more in written comments after the fact, providing space requirements for ducks, including the fact that ducks do not need water to swim in even though they would like it. However, they do need enough water to fully dunk their head in order to maintain optimal health.
Beekeeping
It seems that proposed laws are in flux, as the city said:
Regarding the keeping of bees, staff continues to work with the county entomologist and the county commissioner of agriculture on the appropriate distances for beekeeping. Not withstanding the need to find the appropriate separation requirements, beekeeping would be permitted in single-family zones, community gardens, and retail farms, provided that there is a reliable source of water within 10 feet of the hive, the hive is encircled with a 6-foot tall screen or is located 8 feet above the surrounding grade, the hive opening faces away from the nearest property line, the hive is located in a secure area, and is not visible from the public rights-of-way.
The proposed laws will allow one hive per property, except that an additional hive may be kept for every additional 5,000 square feet in area greater than the minimum lot size in the zone.
Comments: The bee issue drew a lot of comments. Apparently, the current beekeeping regulation requires the hive to be kept at least 600 ft from another property. That is two football fields. The beekeepers want our laws to be the same as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Spokane, New York, Chicago, Denver, Toronto, and Vancouver. Those cities only require the beehive to be 25 feet from the next property.
Another beekeeper presented compelling reasons why it is important to allow two hives instead of one. If a beekeeper has two hives, he or she can trade comb and brood between the weak hive and the strong hive and he or she can gauge the success of one hive against the other and then remedy any problems.
One last comment from a beekeeper noted that aggressive Africanized bees are coming into San Diego, but if we have beekeepers, they will maintain docile hives. Therefore, you will have LESS chance of being stung by an aggressive bee if we have more beekeepers maintaining hives of docile bees.
Community Gardens
San Diego recently modified its community gardens laws, making the law more permissive. However, in the current proposed laws, the regulations would be modified to allow community gardens in the IL 2-1 industrial zone with a neighborhood use permit, and to allow onside sales consistent with the frequency limitations for garage sales in residential zones.
Before these laws become final, they will be presented to the city's Code Monitoring Team, the Technical Advisory Committee, the Community Planners Committee. Then the city will do an email blast of approximately 2,000 individuals in the city, including each community planning group member. After that, the laws will go to the planning commission, the City Council's Land Use and Housing committee, the entire city council, the airport authority and finally the California Coastal Commission. In addition with this process the city is doing an additional public outreach which will be provided in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee, the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative and the 1 in 10 Coalition. The laws will hopefully be finalized in January.
When asked how the new rules will impact the workload of code compliance officers, Joyce replied:
Yes, I've worked with Code Compliance on that. In fact, my office is directly across from Code Compliance officers. We've been talking about it quite a bit. They're happy to see some of these things because they won't have to go on calls for certain animals anymore. There may be some costs associated with some of these things, just to enforce as people are calling up if people have roosters, it'll be official that you can't have roosters. Now it's silent on that. So there may be some costs associated with that. And we're working with them to make sure that the regulations are such that are enforceable. So it's very clear, factual: "You can do this, you can't do that."
Council members Gloria, Faulconer, and Alvarez all expressed support of urban agriculture. For example, Faulconer said: "Very supportive of - this is moving forward in the right direction. I think urban agriculture makes sense."
Compost
Additional comments were made by Kristin Kvernland of the International Rescue Committee and a few high schoolers who work with the IRC's youth program. They wanted to support allowing composting, specifically allowing sales of compost. They argued that allowing operations to make and sell composting could help fund their gardens and create job and internship opportunities for students. I suspect that part of the issue that was not mentioned was whether community gardens and retail farms would be allowed to collect food scraps and other compost materials from off-site (i.e. restaurant waste) to add to their compost piles as I've heard that the city has been touchy about this in the past. I don't think allowing composting of materials generated on site is in jeopardy. One of the students mentioned that in just one month alone, they collected 1600 lbs of food scraps from their school cafeteria. He added that making compost saves their garden money because they can use the compost instead of purchasing inputs.
Goats
Even though goats were taken off the agenda, they still received three comments. One man commented that goats can be kept as pets and not just for milk. He does not want to be prohibited from having a pet goat just because other people might use a goat for milk.
The second goat-related comment was hilarious, and even the City Council members saw the humor in it:
I'm Laura Hershey and I'm here to answer the letter that came from our regulators in the County and from the State, where they are very concerned with health issues that are part of having backyard goats. And I'm concerned too. And that's why I want to give you a one second introduction to pasteurization.
You need a high tech timer, you need a high tech thermometer, and a saucepan. You bring the milk that you just took out of your goat, you bring it to 145 degrees, and hold it for 30 minutes, then plunge it into a cold ice-water bath that you have in your sink.... You don't have to worry about any health issues... Should you forget, you can find it on the internet... Even a third grader can do it.
Last, one person noted that the speed of these new rules are due to a grant that ends in February 2012 and if goats are taken off the table now and the rest of the ordinance is passed in January, goats might never make it back ON the table. |
