According to this article in The Consumerist, a woman residing in Michigan is facing possible jail time for ignoring the town’s interpretation of the planning code while planting a vegetable garden in her front yard instead of what the town’s elders believe are proper plants to grow there.
From the article:
The town ordinance says that front yards have to be planted with “suitable, live, plant material.” The woman feels it qualifies.
“It’s definitely live. It’s definitely plant. It’s definitely material. We think it’s suitable,” she told FOX.
The city planners say that her garden doesn’t count. “If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster’s dictionary, it will say common,” Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski told FOX. “So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what’s common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers.”
However, in looking up “suitable” on Merriam-Webster.com, neither the word “common” nor any word approximating it appears in the definition.
The question here is simple: if this were in your town who would you side with? Do you agree with the city’s interpretation of the code or do you side with the homeowner? If it were your town would you want the code changed so that interpretation was less necessary and instead the code was made clear? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Dakota Complaints Map
Dakota Inmate Dashboard
Loading ...
July 21st, 2011 at 7:08 am
As long as what she is doing does not impact the property of her neighbors in a tangible negative way (odors from fertilizing, excess mud in thier yard from runoff, plants and vegetables left to rot at the end of the season, etc. and not some general off the cuff excuse of diminished property values) more power to her.
July 21st, 2011 at 8:16 am
I think a neatly kept garden can easily be more attractive than a poorly maintained lawn. It is her property, right? Drive around in Mpls or St Paul and you will see many front yards terribly overgrown with what started as wild flowers that now look like hell. We all may be trying to grow as much of our own food, anywhere we can, just to survive soon. I think the Michigan city should rewrite their silly ordinance in favor of allowing at least some garden plants to be grown. I can see them not wanting Corn stalks or Sunflowers in a front yard, but a few pepper plants mixed in with flowers or a Tomato plant here and there are not so unsightly. Too many people get elected and suddenly lose all common sense. The phrase “chicken shit” I believe, came from WWII where some young officers would insist on going by the book, no matter what, or how wrong the book might be in a particular situation, so that good men sometimes died for nothing but the order of an idiot who could not see the big picture.
July 21st, 2011 at 9:36 am
I don’t think they even need to rewrite their code. The code is fine, tey just need to pull their heads out of their butts.
Vegetables are common plants.
July 21st, 2011 at 9:37 am
Since FOX noise is covering this, I suspect a Tea Bagger bias to this story! ;-)
Seriously though, there’s a reason they have ordinances like this in most cities, it’s to protect property values, and it’s not just because some out of touch council is blindly enforcing the rules regardless of whatever “green” purpose the garden serves.
She COULD have at least planted grass on the the unused part of her “victory garden”, and met them at least halfway but instead it’s just mulch and dirt.
She’s being stubborn now because she’s famous (at least for 15 minutes anyway) since the story went viral.
The bottom line is that it’s her property and she should be allowed some leeway since the ordinance is vague, but the front yard still looks like shit aesthetically and I wouldn’t want to be her neighbor.
July 21st, 2011 at 9:37 am
Remember the sixties song?
“Little houses on the hillside
Little houses made of ticky-tacky;
Little houses on the hillside
And they all look just the same.”
There’s just so much wrong with this, I don’t know where to start.
So, instead, I’ll say instead that I wish our government offices would spend less on “nice grass lawns.” How about renting some of that land out for small gardens, like in Europe?
July 21st, 2011 at 9:41 am
I don’t ever want to live in a town that has “elders”. That was her fatal mistake.
It reminds me of when the old fart members of Augusta National told Ricky Fowler to take off his hat because it was disrespectful. Curmudgeons.
That is the main reason I will never play in the Masters.
July 21st, 2011 at 10:00 am
Her garden meets their definition already, and it’s a silly ordinance anyway — would something like a landscaped rock bed not count because it isn’t live plant material? I’d rather see more gardens (of any sort) than more grass lawns.
July 21st, 2011 at 11:35 am
Brings to mind the old Monkees song “Pleasant Vally Sunday.”
July 21st, 2011 at 11:36 am
valley
July 21st, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Again, a great example of what is wrong with our country. Somehow somewhere along the line people began thinking govt had the right and or obligation to tell us how to live our daily lives.
She should be able to plant more or less whatever she wants in her own yard, unless, as noted above it is harming one of her neighbors in an actual quantifiable way.
July 21st, 2011 at 12:36 pm
If the zombie apocalypse occurred and that woman survived, other survivors would be praising her garden and happy to have her plant it anywhere. Baring that, there are many benefits to living in a free society like America and there are some down sides. Up side, you should be allowed to have your garden where you wish on your property, but I believe courts have shown they can’t be eyesores. Down side, if someone puts a garden where they wish on their property, it may not be where you would prefer it to be.
Sucks to be an American.
July 21st, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Since moving to Portland a year ago, having lived in Iowa and Minnesota up until that point, it was refreshing to see a completely different view on what a yard might look like. I am amazed daily by the grass-less, beautiful perennial filled yards and silently congratulate every yard I pass that’s heavily planted as a garden, including one with corn and grapes. That being said, yes, there are always going to be some people who let their yard (grass, former wildflower plot, etc) go to crap. Unsightly is unsightly plain and simple. But I’d much rather see a front yard as a garden where I know the water that’s being used on it is for a purpose instead of just working to maintain a golf course quality lawn. If someone’s that serious about their garden they’re not going to let it get overgrown with weeds.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:48 am
I listened to an interview of this same woman on NPR. What this Consumerist article doesn’t mention is that she consulted with the city before planting the gardens, and was told it was ok.