Leann Barber spent eight years planting 500 fruit trees, vegetables, and native plants to turn her Broward County property into a community garden that serves neighborhood kids. Turning a vacant lot into an urban oasis seems like a wonderful idea, right? Not according to Broward County, Florida, officials.
Last fall county officials issued Leann a citation for gardening on her vacant residential property. The county’s enforcement action threatened to shut down the work of Leann’s nonprofit, Made in Broward, which uses her community garden to teach children about food preservation and how to sew, garden, cook, and make soap. Leann’s goal is to help kids become positive, contributing citizens. Fortunately, after four months, Broward County withdrew its citation after the Institute for Justice (IJ) intervened on Leann’s behalf.
For more than a century, ridiculous zoning rules like those in Broward County have starved communities’ growing need for affordable housing, hobbled small businesses, and banned Americans from enjoying simple activities such as gardening. IJ’s Zoning Justice Project is trying to address this nightmare, but it shouldn’t take one legal fight after another to fix this problem. It’s time communities realize the detrimental impacts of its zoning regulations and reform them.
Broward County, for example, wasn’t the first jurisdiction in Florida to ban gardening on private property. In 2013, Miami Shores threatened to fine a couple for violating a village ordinance that made front-yard vegetable gardens illegal. The couple, Tom Carroll and Hermine Ricketts, were ultimately forced to destroy their beloved garden to avoid paying costly fines. But the two didn’t give up. They partnered with IJ to challenge Miami Shores’ ridiculous ban.
Despite losing their court battle in 2017, Tom and Hermine continued to persevere. They, along with IJ, spent the next two years asking Florida state legislators to pass legislation protecting Floridians’ right to grow vegetables and fruits on their property. Finally, in 2019, legislation was passed and signed into law.
That law expressly prohibits local governments from regulating vegetable gardens on residential property. While that language should seem clear enough, Broward County concluded that it could in fact prohibit Leann’s garden because her property, while residential, lacked a traditional residential structure. Ultimately the county came to its senses and acknowledged the clear and obvious meaning of Florida’s right-to-garden law. So Leann will get to keep her vegetable garden. But were it not for Tom and Hermine’s years-long battle, that might not have been the case.
Overly restrictive zoning rules have eroded people’s ability to use their properties as they see fit. For Leann, Hermine, Tom, and others, it’s time communities roll back these overly restrictive regulations. It’s time to embrace more inclusive zoning practices that let people use their land however they’d like, whether it be helping others, or just planting some vegetables in their front yard.
Tell Us About Your Case
The Institute for Justice is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public interest law firm. Our mission is to end widespread abuses of government power and secure the constitutional rights that allow all Americans to pursue their dreams. IJ has represented individuals who faced retaliatory code enforcement for public comments they made, were arrested for posting jokes about their local police departments on social media, or had baseless lawsuits filed against them because of their criticisms of government officials. If you feel the government has abused your constitutional rights, tell us about your case. Visit https://ij.org/report-abuse/.
About the Institute for Justice
Through strategic litigation, training, communication, activism, legislative outreach and research, the Institute for Justice advances a rule of law under which individuals can control their destinies as free and responsible members of society. IJ litigates to secure economic liberty, educational choice, private property rights, freedom of speech and other vital individual liberties, and to restore constitutional limits on the power of government.