Regulatory Practices of Urban Agriculture: a Connection to Planning and Policy
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Journal of the American Planning Association ISSN: 0194-4363 (Print) 1939-0130 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpa20 Regulatory Practices of Urban Agriculture: A Connection to Planning and Policy Mahbubur Meenar, Alfonso Morales & Leonard Bonarek To cite this article: Mahbubur Meenar, Alfonso Morales & Leonard Bonarek (2017) Regulatory Practices of Urban Agriculture: A Connection to Planning and Policy, Journal of the American Planning Association, 83:4, 389-403 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2017.1369359 Published online: 12 Oct 2017. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjpa20 Download by: [24.9.138.35] Date: 12 October 2017, At: 11:06 Review Essay 389 Regulatory Practices of Urban Agriculture A Connection to Planning and Policy Mahbubur Meenar , Alfonso Morales , and Leonard Bonarek Problem, research strategy, and fi nd- and use and municipal regulatory challenges, as well as concerns about ings: Municipalities across the United States community food security, make urban agriculture a key component of are gradually recognizing urban agriculture urban planning. We view urban agriculture as the nonindustrial practices as an integral part of planning, land use, and L zoning ordinances. We review the litera- and systems of growing, processing, and distributing or selling food or food ture on the regulation of urban agriculture products through intensive plant cultivation or animal husbandry in urban areas. at a moment when policy and regula- Urban agriculture can take various forms and occupy a variety of places. Urban tory vacuums exist and the acceptance and agriculture often goes unregulated, which creates policy vacuums that lead to integration of urban agriculture is uneven. confl icts between practitioners, regulators, and politicians. Many U.S. munici- We review the current regulatory practices palities have begun to identify regulatory vacuums or the need to reconstruct of 40 metropolitan and 40 micropolitan municipalities in the 4 U.S. Census regions. their urban agriculture regulations to mitigate confl ict or respond to pressure We fi nd that municipalities are fi lling policy from urban agriculture advocates and proponents of community food secu- vacuums by adopting enabling ordinances rity. Some municipalities recognize that urban agriculture is an integral part of (zoning ordinances, land use designations, planning and zoning practices and create policies to facilitate urban agriculture. resolutions), regulations on urban agriculture These policies and regulations, however, may in practice impede as well as sup- production (backyard animals, built struc- port urban agriculture. The process of integrating urban agriculture into plan- tures, practitioner responsibility), and fi scal policy instruments (restrictions on sales of ning and land use practices remains uneven; practitioners would benefi t from the agricultural products, tax abatement, urban review of current regulatory trends and best practices we undertake here. Downloaded by [24.9.138.35] at 11:06 12 October 2017 agriculture fees). Our fi ndings support local We explore the current regulation of urban agriculture production, focusing planning practitioners in fi lling regulatory primarily on community gardens and market farms. We begin with a brief gaps, practitioners of urban agriculture in overview of current debates on the benefi ts, drawbacks, and challenges of urban seeking how it’s done elsewhere, and re- agriculture. We next explore local policy and regulatory vacuums by discussing searchers in discerning new applied and basic research projects. We identify 3 principal the intersection of urban agriculture planning, practice, and regulations, focusing knowledge gaps: Planners need a complete on three policy areas: general zoning regulations, land tenure and regulation, and typology of regulatory possibilities; a bet- animal regulation. We then review regulatory practices in 80 U.S. municipalities ter understanding of how local, state, and that fall into three categories: enabling legislation, urban agriculture production federal legislations constrain or enable urban regulations, and fi scal policies. We next suggest needed research in three areas: agriculture; and empirical evidence of the economic, social, and environmental impacts understanding the range of regulatory possibilities; how different levels of gov- of urban agriculture. ernment affect urban agriculture; and the economic, social, and environmental Takeaway for practice: Planners should assess existing urban agricultural practices and consider which regulatory frameworks Keywords: land use planning , public policy , University of Wisconsin–Madison. Leonard best support multiple local goals, incor- regulation , urban agriculture , zoning Bonarek ( [email protected] ) is a porating a concern with urban agriculture About the authors: Mahbubur Meenar regional planner for the Bicycle Coalition of into ongoing activities, deploying existing ( [email protected] ) is an assistant profes- Greater Philadelphia (PA). or innovative land use tools, facilitating sor of geography, planning, and sustainability Journal of the American Planning Association, institutional cooperation, and promoting at Rowan University in New Jersey. Alfonso Vol. 83 , No. 4 , Autumn 2017 inclusive decision making and community Morales ( [email protected] ) is a professor DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2017.1369359 engagement. of planning and landscape architecture at the © 2017 American Planning Association, Chicago, IL. 390 Journal of the American Planning Association, Autumn 2017, Vol. 83, No. 4 impacts of urban agriculture. We conclude by recommend- Policy). Most original research articles use qualitative ing that planners and policymakers assess existing local methods, including interviews, participant observation, regulations and policies to determine how to appropriately and surveys, to identify the pros and cons of urban agricul- regulate urban agriculture to develop its full potential in ture. Other articles are exploratory, theoretical, or based on their communities; planners should also consider ways to quantitative methods. promote urban agriculture and to address the land tenure Second, we explore the current state of urban agricul- issues that are so problematic for practitioners while facili- ture regulatory practices in major U.S. municipalities, tating active community engagement in these efforts. providing examples of best practices. Figure 1 shows the locations of the 80 municipalities across the four U.S. Census regions (Northeast, South, Midwest, West); Table 1 Synthesizing the Literature on Urban lists all of the municipalities we sampled in 36 states. We Agriculture Practice and Regulations focus on major municipalities in metropolitan areas ( containing a core urban area of 50,000 or more popula- The contemporary reinvigoration of urban food pro- tion) and in micropolitan areas (those containing an urban duction has sparked signifi cant research around the coun- core of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population). try by scholars of planning and related disciplines such as Forty of the municipalities we sampled are in the most architecture, economics, environmental studies, geography, populated metropolitan areas in the four regions, 10 per landscape architecture, law, and public health. We present region. The other 40 are in the most populous micropoli- our multidisciplinary literature review in two sections. tan areas in the four regions, again 10 per region. First, we summarize the current literature on the We identifi ed and examined zoning ordinances, zoning benefi ts and drawbacks of urban agriculture; we then resolutions, land use designations, and relevant documents discuss the connection between urban planning and the from these 80 municipalities between September and regulation of urban agriculture. We present our review of November 2015. A common source for municipal ordi- more than 200 documents—largely peer-reviewed research nance searches was the municode.com/library website or review articles with some gray literature—including (Municode). The metropolitan municipalities that did not books; planning and policy journals; relevant social science use Municode shared their ordinances via offi cial websites journals; law journals; interdisciplinary journals on health, or other online platforms. Our key search terms included food, and agriculture; and reports, policy briefs, and spe- urban agriculture, urban farm, urban garden, market garden , cialty publications from national organizations (e.g., the and community garden; we also used these terms in con- American Planning Association, Lincoln Institute of Land junction with other search terms, including backyard Downloaded by [24.9.138.35] at 11:06 12 October 2017 Figure 1. Locations of metropolitan and micropolitan municipalities studied (N = 80). Meenar et al.: Regulatory Practices of Urban Agriculture 391 Table 1. List of metropolitan and micropolitan municipalities studied in animals, chickens/goats/bees/pigs, ordinance/resolution/law, four U.S. Census regions . regulation, zoning, land use, building/structure/greenhouse/ hoophouse, tax, abatement, sales, liability, insurance , and fees/ Metropolitan municipality Micropolitan municipality permits. We conducted brief phone interviews with munici- Northeast region pal offi