At the Aug. 15 meeting of the Des Moines Plan and Zoning Commission, on which I serve, I made the blunt assertion that “we have failed to provide clear strategic guidance to our community on how we want to support the economic viability of these types of projects in our densifying city.” I and other commission members had just opposed the recommendation of staff on how to resolve a land-use dispute concerning the Woodland Realm, an urban garden.
Barely more than a month later, Jason Van Essen, the city’s administrator for planning and urban design, and his team have provided a rational, responsible and thoughtful solution for righting this wrong.
If approved by the commission today and passed by City Council, the proposed ordinance changes and additions published by the city late last week will smartly remove the barriers and uncertainties which have for too long prevented our community from confidently investing and maintaining a fully inclusive, economically sustainable local food system.
While the time from action to proposal may seem rapid for some, what has been proposed benefits from years of collaboration. Jeremy Caron has now led two iterations of the Food Security Task Force originally formed in 2020 that focused on broad and comprehensive aspirations for a future where all of our neighbors could one day be free of food insecurity. In October 2021, I began proposing small, narrow fixes to a city ordinance, Chapter 134-3.7.2.
Countless other programs, in cities from Boston to Austin, Vancouver to Berlin, have been surveyed and analyzed throughout years of efforts. This massive scale of input, insight and research is why it is so impressive how artfully Van Essen’s team has charted a middle ground between too much and too little upon which urban agricultural innovation could finally be unleashed while the rights of residents and the value they have built within their properties is protected.
What is proposed provides the support and confidence our community needs in two important ways.
First, it makes those who are already operating in our community on the margins of acceptability fully legal by right. For example, if the current proposal had already been in place, it would have avoided the thousands of dollars spent by Woodland Realm over the past few years jumping through countless procedural hoops. The hydroponic farm in the basement of the Wesley Life facility on University Avenue would now be allowed to operate and expand without the risk of protracted negotiations.
Programs like Lutheran Services in Iowa Global Greens could address past challenges to securing land and operating within the neighborhoods it serves. The vertical, distributed farming operation producing maple syrup each year from neighborhood trees could secure the investment needed to expand a uniquely impressive operation while delivering the additive benefit of fortifying our community’s tree canopy at no cost to the city.
This ordinance proposal allows the city to clearly and officially recognize these successes, eliminate the uncertainty they currently operate under, and unlock their path for expanded operation and community support.
Second, it provides a measured framework for safe innovation by drawing from local norms and international successes. For example, local food networks in densifying cities like ours will have to think beyond horizontal farming. As ground becomes more limited, we will have to start thinking vertically. This ordinance could allow us to soon be unknowingly driving past “container farms” parked in garages using aeroponic technology to earn families vital secondary incomes all across our city. At the same time, it protects us by clearly acknowledging that industry-scale aquaponics is more akin to a hog confinement than a backyard koi pond, and must come with appropriately scaled planning, permitting, and citing.
This ordinance provides the right to install appropriate structures for protecting farmer investment at the beginning and end of growing seasons where weather has become even more uncertain over recent years, while putting in clear, objective standards for when such structures should require further analysis of their safety and appropriateness for the neighborhood around them. This ordinance massively expands the opportunity for small-scale, neighbor-to-neighbor networks of local markets more akin to “garage sales” for fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the entire growing season, yet makes the distinction and requires smart, responsible transparency requirements once contract operators are running businesses next to our homes.
Previously from Chris Draper: Retaining Iowa boomers’ wealth requires focusing on human impact
I have rarely been accused of thinking “too small.” But in this case, I did. This ordinance is not perfect, yet no public collaboration ever is. This ordinance will allow the community new ways to expand and grow like it never could before, and more work will be demanded of all of us to continue iteratively evaluating and refining what opportunities we want to see expanded, and what future paths we want to more strategically curtail. But what Jason Van Essen and his team have developed is not a superficial token or false progress.
This city proposal is a smart, deliberate, powerful step towards the inclusive, adaptable, and sustainable local food system we need. I’m hopeful those who have invested the years it took to make this a reality will join the Plan and Zoning Commission to both celebrate this success and help our community prepare for where it would allow us all to go next.
Chris Draper, Ph.D., P.E. is a member of the city of Des Moines Plan and Zoning Commission. He serves as a director for local sustainability consultancy Meidh, and is a visiting scholar at the Indiana University Ostrom Workshop, where he was influential in the creation of the Human Impact Unit (Hu) for valuing public and private resiliency efforts.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: OPINION: Responsible urban farming is set to be reality in Des Moines
