Bill seeks to uproot home rule on gardens

The Florida Senate Community Affairs committee on Tuesday gave a green thumbs up to a bill that prohibits cities and counties from regulating where resi- dents could grow vegetable gardens.

The bill is inspired by a battle between Miami Shores and village residents Hermine Ricketts and Tom Car- roll. Five years ago, the vil- lage council ordered the couple to uproot a 17-year-old vegetable garden in the front yard or face a daily $50 fine.

They took the village to court with the help of Injustice Institute, a national nonprofit that seeks to limit government size and power. But in November, the Florida 3rd Court of Appeal backed the village’s decision, saying it has the right to regulate landscaping and design in residential neighborhoods.

Unsatisfied, Ricketts and her husband have taken their case to the state Supreme Court, where the case is still pending. But fearing they could not pay what might have been a hefty fine while they appealed the local law, Ricketts and Carroll have uprooted their garden.

According to the bill, coun- ties, municipalities or other political subdivisions would be prohibited from regulating “vegetable gardens on resi- dential properties” and any regulation imposing restrictions on vegetable gardens would be “void and unenforceable.” The proposal includes exceptions for regulations related to water use during drought conditions, fertilizer use or control of invasive species. In the committee meet- ing, Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, made a case for the bill (SB 1776), which he co-sponsored with Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Orange Park. “That’s what we’ve come to — home-grown gardens are outlawed,” Bean said. Local governments should not be able to restrict the rights of residents to grow their own food, he contin- ued.

Americans growing their own food is as American as apple pie, he said, but “ironically, apple pie would be illegal if it’s from a tree in a garden in your front yard.

Also ironic? The number of the bill, he said.

“1776 — it’s America,” he said. “Let’s join together and say we are preserving our county’s core values and

that is the right to grow our own food.”

Bean’s plea elicited laughter from the audience, but also some scrutiny from com- mittee member Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami.

“Having said all that, this still is a preemption bill, correct?” he asked, referring to the flood of bills this session that attempt to strip

local governments of their powers.

“Correct,” Bean responded.

Sen. David Simmon s, R-Longwood, suggested

changing the bill’s “strong language” so that local governments could have the flexibility to “reasonably regulate but not prohibit” the location of vegetable gardens.

“I doubt that any one of us in our neighborhood would want to have an entire front yard, for example, done as a garden that’s got corn that’s 10 feet high or eight feet high,” Simmons said.

The bill also was met with opposition from the Florida

League of Cities, whose legislative counsel, David Cruz, said it omits some key issues related to home gardens. For example, the bill

doesn’t restrict the gardens to personal consumption or limit their size. Also, it does not address the safety issues that can stem from unharvested crops, Cruz said.

“The goals here is we want to maintain property levels high at the local level,” he said.

Rewriting the bill to allow local governments “reasonable regulation” as recom

mended by Simmons “would be a step in the right direction,” Cruz said.