Michigan Right to Farm Law, what does it mean?

[jphillips]

Newchickiemomx2

Good and bad news.

Bad News: Mount Clemons has an ordinance.
15.042 - Sec. 4.2

ANIMALS.
No animals, livestock or poultry of any kind shall be raised, bred or kept on any residentially zoned or used property, except that non-vicious dogs, cats or other household pets may be kept, provided they are not kept, bred or maintained for any commercial purposes. All animals shall be maintained in accordance with applicable City Ordinances.

Good News: Population in 2010: 16,314.

So....as long as you sell some farm product, the current GAAMPs should include you.​

 

[BackyardFarmMom]

I am sorry... been trying to find this for a while now...
Does anyone have a link to the proposed changes to MI GAAMPS?

Thank you... I found it!
*wipes sweat from brow*

 

[RaZ]

For everyone else...
http://www.michigan.gov/mdard/0,4610,7-125-1567_1599_1605---,00.html

 

[BackyardFarmMom]

I also found a great letter format that makes it super easy to write a letter!!!

Your Name
Address
Date

Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development
Right to Farm Program
P.O. Box 30017
Lansing, Michigan 48909


Dear ______________:
I am a long-time resident of our city, and I am writing to express my concern about recent discussion and the pending decision to remove the trees along the Main Street corridor. I understand that the decision is being considered to enable street widening that will accommodate increasingly heavier traffic.
However, I do not believe that the benefits of widening Main Street for more traffic compare favorably to the benefits of keeping the trees. Consider: Trees make for a more natural, less artificial, and therefore less stressful, environment. The sight and sound of traffic, on the other hand, are not pleasant, and can leave us feeling more stressed. Furthermore, it is well known that trees improve air quality; leaves filter the air we breathe, absorb pollution, and give off oxygen. It is also well known that traffic gives off myriad pollutants that decrease air quality.
It would seem that widening our roads would bring increased growth, and thus a better economy, to our city. However, consider that trees bring energy savings by moderating heat in commercial areas, and that landscaping with trees increases property values. Traffic, on the other hand, will increase energy costs by increasing temperatures and air pollution, and will decrease surrounding property values.
Are these tradeoffs that we really want to make? I am looking forward to your response.
Sincerely,

 

[wingless]

For anyone who thinks they might be interested in RTF for awhile, I recommend saving the actual PDFs of the GAAMPS to your hard drive. Once the 2013 GAAMPS are approved, you will no longer have access to the 2012 GAAMPS, or to the DRAFT 2013 GAAMPS, on the MDARD website.

Hope to see many of you in Lansing later this morning.

 

[olefarmersdaughter]

I also found a great letter format that makes it super easy to write a letter!!!

Your Name
Address
Date

Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development
Right to Farm Program
P.O. Box 30017
Lansing, Michigan 48909


Dear ______________:
I am a long-time resident of our city, and I am writing to express my concern about recent discussion and the pending decision to remove the trees along the Main Street corridor. I understand that the decision is being considered to enable street widening that will accommodate increasingly heavier traffic.
However, I do not believe that the benefits of widening Main Street for more traffic compare favorably to the benefits of keeping the trees. Consider: Trees make for a more natural, less artificial, and therefore less stressful, environment. The sight and sound of traffic, on the other hand, are not pleasant, and can leave us feeling more stressed. Furthermore, it is well known that trees improve air quality; leaves filter the air we breathe, absorb pollution, and give off oxygen. It is also well known that traffic gives off myriad pollutants that decrease air quality.
It would seem that widening our roads would bring increased growth, and thus a better economy, to our city. However, consider that trees bring energy savings by moderating heat in commercial areas, and that landscaping with trees increases property values. Traffic, on the other hand, will increase energy costs by increasing temperatures and air pollution, and will decrease surrounding property values.
Are these tradeoffs that we really want to make? I am looking forward to your response.
Sincerely

So true..........

 

[MichAttorney]

Well, it was a grand ole time at the MDARD meeting on the 2013 GAAMP amendments today, and I was glad to meet several members of the community there.

My take on it was that several of the commissioners were receptive to the potential problems that were being raised by the changes and there was talk of tabling the changes for review next year. I had a good chance to talk to Bob Kennedy (vice-chair of the commission) during a break and we had a great conversation. Also, he was nodding in agreement with much of what I was saying during my two turns to talk. He is likely the best person to approach with the concerns of the group.

I talked about some of the legal problems that exist with the "Site Selection" GAAMP changes and the deference to local zoning ordinances (when the Michigan Right to Farm Act specifically states that zoning ordinances are pre-empted.

One of the commissioners really thought that the GAAMPS should possibly be revised (or new GAAMP possibly) to deal with urban farming, which he thought was an emerging trend that needed to be properly dealt with.

Also, had a chance to talk to one of the people who works behind the scenes as well and she is willing to meet with others to see what potential resolutions there may be in dealing with the issues of local ordinances that conflict with the Right to Farm Act.

I'll be putting together some of the legal arguments to be made and hopefully can attend the next meeting as well. Either way, I'll send my analysis to the commissioners ahead of time and start contacting them behind the scenes to start nudging them, get suggestions, etc.

A positive day in my opinion (although I know Wingless still has concerns, and certainly the points she made to me were well taken ... don't count the you-know-what before they you-know-what, and all that).

 

[MichAttorney]

As I am sitting here putting together my legal positions to send out to the MDARD commission for the GAAMP changes, I'm sitting here reading Shelby Township v. Papesh again.

One of the points that needs to be made in any RTFA reliance by any BYC'er is this:

MCL 286.474 (http://legislature.mi.gov/(S(5yb5vt...eg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-286-474) requires that the director (of MDARD(?)) conduct an investigation of any complaints relating to a farm that is not in compliance with the GAAMPS. It is then up to the director to conduct an investigation, recommend corrective action, etc., etc.

The point is that the township has a method for dealing with any complaints that they might have - and consequently they must do something that we call "exhausting administrative remedies" - they have to go through the administrative hoops.

So, going back to Papesh, one of the arguments that was raised there was that the township did not follow the administrative remedies. The Michigan Appellate Court did *not* laugh that argument off. The only problem in Papesh was that it was not *clear* that they were engaged in a commercial farm operation, and so there was a fact issue that needed to be resolved. Here's what the Michigan Appellate Court said on that count ...



Quote:


Therefore, if you are relying on the RTFA, one of the defenses that people need to assert is the defense of "failure to exhaust administrative remedies" on the part of the local government. If you can clearly show you're engaged in a commercial operation, you may win on the fact that the local government didn't first go through the steps of complaining to the director.

 

[wingless]

Hey everybody -

It was a pretty intense meeting today, since so many more people showed up than previously, and because there is a separate public comment period for agenda items (and the 2013 GAAMPS were an agenda item), many of us spoke twice. In addition, of course, Jim Johnson and Wayne Whitman had a presentation on the 2013 GAAMPS, so overall there was a very extended discussion of RTF at the Ag Commission meeting this morning.

In addition, I thought that MDARD and the Ag Commission extended themselves in several important ways. Perhaps most importantly, Commissioner Coe recommended to J Johnson and W Whitman that most or all of the Proposed 2013 Site Selection GAAMPS be tabled for a year, and that during that year a task force should be convened to try to work out some of these issues. I am not sure what MDARD thought about that suggestion, but it was certainly welcomed by me and (I think) the whole BYC contingent.

Gordon Wenk, the Chief Deputy Director was also very generous, and spent some time telling me the history of the GAAMPS - especially the site selection GAAMPS, to make the point that during those discussions it was never the intent that RTF should protect farming in residential and urban areas. And then he was especially generous when I told him that I personally know two people who lived in residential areas back in the early days of RTF, who had chickens and were challenged by their city/township - and who were supported by MDA; in those days, MDA argued to cities and townships that these non-agriculturally zoned farmers actually were protected by RTF. Quite the reverse of what is happening now, but Mr. Wenk looked thoughtful and agreed that MDARD has evolved over the years.

Mr. Wenk then sent his assistant to meet with all of us after the meeting to exchange contact information, so we can meet up to discuss our common interests, or at least find common ground.

As for me, I think I may have been a little harsh on Jim Johnson, since I quoted what he said during the Dec 2011 Ag Commission meeting, which is something like "...it has been clear from the beginning that RTF protects everyone." The discrepancy between that statement (which I believe to be true) and other statements that I know he has made to other people to deny them their RTF rights is just under my skin. More than one person has said to me that he has outright lied to them. But I really do want to find that common ground with MDARD, so I am going to work hard to let bygones be bygones, even when it comes to Mr. Johnson.

I guess the last thing I would say is that for all the strengths of the discussions today, it is still clear that what we here tend to think of as the facts of RTF are very different from the facts of RTF as understood by MDARD. We have this community here on BYC that is self-reinforcing, and they have a community there at MDARD that is self-reinforcing - so we're all pretty sure of the facts within our group, but the two groups disagree. In particular, even though Jim Johnson himself said it, I don't think that most people in the room today accept or understand that "...it has been clear from the beginning that RTF protects everyone." Gordon Wenk told me I was right about that, for example, and an hour later someone else from MDARD told me that I used that statement out of context.

And although I think Commissioner Coe was really great to suggest that we table proposed changes to the 2013 site selection GAAMPS in preference of convening a task force, I think he expects that the final solution will be a statewide ordinance recommendation for non-commercial residential farming operations. That sounds great, and will solve the backyard farming problem for many people. However, that solution is quite distinct from RTF protection. Perhaps we can have both - ordinances for non-commercial operations and RTF for commercial operations - but there is clearly some very serious work to be done before we get there.

Have a good evening, everyone.

 

[WashtenawFarmer]

Hi,
I posted this in the general Michigan Forum, then found this forum so am reposting with some additions.

I'm new here--I was at the MDARD meeting yesterday and spoke. My husband and I are actually small-scale mixed production commercial farmers with 80 acres in Washtenaw County (currently we have 40 acres of grain acreage, 1 acre of orchard, a large garden for selling at the local farmers' market, and are working on native wildflower and grass seed production). But the new site selection GAAMPS will affect even my 80-acre farm, banning any livestock raising on just over half of it and requiring an odor management plan on most of the rest of it, even if (as I plan) I only want to raise 15-20 chickens for selling eggs at a farmers' market. This seems plainly ridiculous. My farm isn't in the middle of a city either--we're bordered by farms, hunting properties, and large rural residential lots. But those 1/4 mile and 1/2 mile radius circles in the site selection GAAMPS are huge areas of land when you're talking about even a hundred chickens (an entire Township is only 6 miles square). I really think the GAAMPS need to specify another level of farming, constituting 1-2 "animal units" (so, up to 100 chickens) with very different requirements for distance from neighbors.

One thing about the Site Selection GAAMPS that I think gets obscured when Mr. Whitman and Mr. Johnson talk about a livestock operation's proximity to "non-farm residences" is that according to the definitions section of the GAAMPS, "non-farm residences" means any residence not associated with that particular livestock/farm operation. So in my particular case, even though many of the neighbors to my farm actually are farmers themselves, some of them even having livestock, they count as "non-farm residences" for the purposes of those Site Selection GAAMPS tables. And any of those farms that have more than one residence--say, a second house built for a son or daughter--well, that's two non-farm residences.

I think there are some common interests for those wanting to raise chickens in urban or suburban settings and for small-scale commercial farmers who are often in areas being increasingly encroached upon by development. Personally, I strongly support backyard chicken farmers. I think the legal distinction between commercial and non-commercial farming is problematic given the history of this country. And beyond that, the current GAAMPS site selection tables do not seem to have been created with thoughtfulness or an analysis of what they might mean even for small-scale commercial farmers, let alone backyard farmers. I do not see how the numbers for those tables, which seem to have been pulled out of a hat, constitute "Generally Accepted Agricultural Practices." And anything beyond generally accepted ag practices is really legislation by bureaucrats. I believe that if the current proposed changes are indeed instituted, the MDARD is going to end up with a lot of litigation on its hands, which isn't good for anyone. Certainly not for the farmers (commercial or non-commercial) having to sue, and certainly not for the taxpayers who fund the State of Michigan defending itself.

Glad to be here and to have met some of you yesterday.